The virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) announces its intention to picket the funerals of five Amish girls murdered in a Pennsylvania schoolhouse. The organization agrees to abstain from picketing in return for an hour of airtime on talk show host Mike Gallagher’s radio program. WBC leader Shirley Phelps-Roper tells Fox News host Sean Hannity that the Amish girls “did deserve to die.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] “The Lord your God is ramping up the issues, is smiting this nation,” she says. “What he did with one stroke on that day, sending a pervert in—because America is a nation of perverts—it’s appropriate he sent a pervert in to shoot those children. The Amish people were laid to an open shame because they are a false religion.” Phelps-Roper says that the girls also deserved to die because Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell had committed “blasphemous sins” against the WBC. Rendell had criticized the church for protesting at the funerals of soldiers killed overseas (see June 2005 and After) and has signed legislation restricting protests at funerals. [New York Times, 10/6/2006; Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2009]

James Kopp, convicted of murdering abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian (see March 17-18, 2003), is found guilty of violating the FACE Act, which makes it a crime to deny access to women’s health clinics (see May 1994). Because of the severity of his violation, Kopp is sentenced to life in prison without parole. Assistant US Attorney Kathleen Mehltretter says in court filings: “The fact that the defendant has been convicted in New York State Court is irrelevant to this proceeding. The United States has the obligation and the right to enforce its criminal laws.” [Buffalo News, 1/7/2007; National Abortion Federation, 2010]

Anti-abortion activist Paul Ross Evans plants a homemade bomb in the parking lot of the Austin Women’s Health Center in Texas. The local bomb squad disarms the device, which contains two pounds of nails (used as “shrapnel” and capable of killing or maiming). The bomb is defused without incident. [Associated Press, 5/31/2009]

The Secret Service, reacting to credible threats, grants presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-IL) protection—the earliest by far any presidential candidate has ever been granted Secret Service protection. The protection is warranted, as the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies will thwart at least four assassination attempts on Obama’s life (see June-December 2008). [Time, 9/30/2010]

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a leader of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After), is arrested during a protest in Bellevue, Nebraska. Today, as is her practice, Phelps-Roper wears an American flag around her waist, which she allows to drag the ground, and allows her son to stand on another American flag. Phelps-Roper is charged with desecrating the flag, negligent child abuse, disturbing the peace, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Three years later, the flag desecration and contributing to delinquency charges will be dropped, in part because a federal judge will have found the flag desecration statute unconstitutional. Bellevue will also pay Phelps-Roper $17,000 in return for her dropping of a lawsuit against the city. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012]

The I-35W bridge collapse, four days after its occurrence. [Source: Cobb Law Group]The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) announces its intention to picket the funerals of the people who died in a recent bridge collapse in Minnesota. The Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, recently collapsed, killing 13 and injuring 145. The WBC released a statement after the collapse celebrating the deaths of the victims, saying that America, Minnesota, and Minneapolis are all being punished for tolerating homosexuality. Minnesota is the “land of the Sodomite damned,” the church states. WBC leader Shirley Phelps-Roper tells a reporter that the bridge collapse was an act of divine vengeance: “The bridge stood in place by the word of God and it fell by the word of God.… Each of these little events is just a harbinger of the coming destruction of this American experiment. We are delivering the final call of the doomed nation.” According to Phelps-Roper, signs at the protest will read, “God cast down the bridge,” “Thank God for 9/11” (see September 8, 2006), “America is doomed,” “God hates fags,” “God hates fag enablers,” and “God hates Minnesota.” [Minnesota Star-Tribune, 8/2/2007; Minnesota Monitor, 8/7/2007; Think Progress, 8/7/2007; MPR Archive, 2011] The announced protests never take place, and no local supporters turn out for any of the funerals. Local reporter and columnist Paul Schmelzer writes that the WBC is “notorious for no-shows,” and that the press releases are often issued to garner publicity and stir up controversy. Phelps-Roper implies that the protests are called off because the group feels threatened, saying, “When we have to divert a group because there’s something we need to get to more importantly, or we divert the group because we see the location where we’re headed to is so filled with rage that the gloves are off—they’re unabashedly breathing out threatening and slaughter—then we won’t come.” The ‘more important’ activities are protests at funerals of slain soldiers (see June 2005 and After): “[God] said, ‘I’ll drag you into a war you cannot win, and I will dash your children to pieces.’ Now how are we gonna connect that dot, if we don’t get to those dead soldiers’ funerals?… We’ve got all the time in the world. You’re going to be fishing bodies out of there for weeks. There will be more memorial services and there will be more funerals, and along the way we will pick some of them off.” [Twin Cities Daily Planet, 8/10/2007]

A jury in the case of Snyder v. Phelps awards $11 million to Albert Snyder, finding that the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After), its leader Fred Phelps, and six other members had intentionally inflicted emotional distress on the Snyder family and violated its privacy. Snyder is the father of a slain Marine, and the members of the WBC had picketed his son’s funeral with signs featuring stick figures engaged in sex acts and messages such as “Semper Fi Fags,” and posted derogatory statements about them on the WBC Web site (see March 10, 2006 and After). The WBC has a history of picketing the funerals of dead American soldiers, claiming the soldiers’ deaths are God’s punishment for America’s tolerance for homosexuality (see June 2005 and After). [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2007; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] The judge will later reduce the judgment against the WBC to $5 million (see April 3, 2008).

Russell Dean Landers, a member of the anti-government Montana Freemen serving an 11-year prison sentence for conspiracy, bank fraud, and threatening a federal judge (see November 8, 1998), is sentenced to an additional 15 years after being convicted of trying to extort his release from federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma. Landers and two other inmates, Clayton Heath Albers and Barry Dean Bischof, filed legal documents demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars from prison officials for using the inmates’ names, which they claim had been “copyrighted.” The three also fraudulently obtained a credit report on the prison warden, and used the information in it to try to file false liens against the warden’s personal property. In 2004, the three hired a man to seize the warden’s vehicles, freeze his bank accounts, and change the locks on his doors, based on the liens; Landers and his accomplices did not know that they had hired an undercover FBI agent. Believing that the warden’s property had been seized, the three demanded to be released from prison before negotiating the return of the warden’s property. Two other inmates, Carl Ervin Batts and William Michael Roberson, have already pled guilty for their parts in the scheme. Albers and Bischof also receive lengthy jail terms. [US Department of Justice, 4/7/2008; Southern Poverty Law Center, 8/2008]

Judge Richard D. Bennett of the US District Court in Maryland orders liens against properties owned by the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) to secure damages awarded at trial. For decades, the WBC has protested against homosexuality and other “offenses,” and has since 2005 picketed soldiers’ funerals (see June 2005 and After), causing tremendous controversy. The church is being sued by Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, died in service. The WBC protested at the younger Snyder’s funeral, prompting the lawsuit (see March 10, 2006 and After). The jury awarded the Snyder family $11 million in compensatory and punitive damages (see October 2007), but Bennett reduces this to $5 million, which includes $2.1 million in punitive charges. One of Snyder’s lawyers says, based on his analysis of WBC financial records, that if the church is forced to pay even the lower amount, it would likely drive it into bankruptcy. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2007; Topeka Capital-Journal, 4/4/2008]

The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) issues a press release praising the loss of life resulting from the Sichuan earthquake that killed at least 68,000 Chinese. The WBC refers to the Chinese people as “slant-eyed b_stards,” and says that it praises God for the “Great Killer Earthquake that He sent to kill thousands of stiffhearted Chinese rebels against God.” According to the press release, WBC members are praying for “many more earthquakes to kill many more thousands of impudent and ungrateful Chinese.… God hates China.” Shanghai journalist Kenneth Tan writes in response: “Vile, vile words that could only have come from the pits of hell, and the devil himself. These guys know not who it is they are worshipping. Their words would all be very funny if their hatred were not so real.” [Shanghaiist, 5/16/2008; New York Times, 5/7/2009] In another response, Michael Standaert, a Western journalist living in China, challenges Chinese computer hackers to “take down” the WBC Web site (see 1997). [Huffington Post, 5/14/2008]

The Secret Service, in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, thwarts at least four alleged assassination attempts on the life of presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-IL—see May 2007 and After). One attempt is launched by militiamen in Pennsylvania, one by white supremacists in Denver, one by white supremacists in Tennessee, and one by an active-duty Marine in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. All the participants are arrested and charged with a variety of criminal actions. The Secret Service refuses to give details of the alleged assassination plots. [Time, 9/30/2010]

The FBI arrests Pittsburgh-area resident Bradley T. Kahle as part of a larger sweep of a domestic terrorist group (see June 8, 2008). Kahle, a recruiter for the Pennsylvania Citizens Militia, tells authorities he had planned to shoot black people from a rooftop in Pittsburgh, and says that if either Barack Obama (D-IL) or Hillary Clinton (D-NY) are elected president, the country will be engulfed in civil war. Kahle, a resident of Troutville, Pennsylvania, allegedly gave undercover FBI agents explicit instructions on how to make deadly grenades using “bean cans” or other such containers. Undercover agents have been monitoring Kahle and other area domestic terrorism plotters for well over a year. In a raid, FBI agents find 16 improvised bombs in what the agents term a “gun reloading room,” along with cans of fragmentation and bags of lead shot. Kahle has shown undercover agents a number of firearms, including assault rifles and a sniper rifle, and over 5,000 rounds of ammunition. An FBI affidavit says of Kahle’s improvised grenades: “Kahle continued that a tactic for employing a bean can, if raided, is to wait until the police shoot gas through your door. The hole made by the gas projectile can then be used to throw a bean can grenade back out at the approaching entry team to kill as many law enforcement officers as possible.” He allegedly told an undercover agent that once he began attacking law enforcement officials: “You wouldn’t want to be near me. SWAT teams included. Bring them all on.… don’t send the kids, bring your very best. Hey, eight or 10 good bean bombs… five or 600 rounds of ammo and some good equipment. I would be a tough take.” Kahle told undercover agents that he intended to begin by shooting judges, magistrates, and police chiefs, which he said would “start the doomsday process.” He also told an undercover agent that he hoped Clinton or Obama would “get assassinated” if they were elected president. “If not they will disarm the country, and we will have a civil war.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/11/2008; Associated Press, 6/11/2008; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2011] Federal Judge Pete Pesto will rule that despite Kahle’s stockpile of weapons and his rhetoric, he does not pose a threat to the community, and releases him on house arrest with an electronic monitor pending his trial. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 6/12/2008] Kahle will be acquitted of all charges. He will say that “the US Constitution was the big winner” in the verdict. Defense attorney Blair Hindman will successfully argue that Kahle never directly threatened anyone, and all of his weapons were for defensive purposes and “no different than what thousands of other Americans have in their garages.” [Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, 3/10/2010]

A screenshot of a local Pittsburgh news broadcast showing three of four suspects arrested on charges of domestic terrorism. [Source: FireDogLake (.com)]The FBI arrests four Pittsburgh-area people on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks. Marvin Hall of Rimersburg, Perry Landis of the Clarion area, Morgan Jones of Lucinda, and Melissa Huet, presumably of Pittsburgh, are arrested after authorities learned they were stockpiling a cache of weapons with plans to target local government buildings. Two more suspects will be arrested days later, including Bradley T. Kahle (see June 8, 2008). Many of the six have ties to the right-wing militia movement; Landis is sergeant-at-arms of the Brookville Tiger Militia in Jefferson County. In a raid, the FBI confiscates hundreds of weapons, including hunting rifles, a Romanian assault rifle, 16 homemade bombs, homemade rockets, a homemade flame thrower, blasting caps, and cannons. The four made threats to blow up government buildings and carry out other acts of domestic terrorism. They face numerous federal firearms charges as well as charges of illegal sales, manufacture, and transport of weapons. The raid is the culmination of three years of investigations, including the insertion of undercover agents inside the operation. Federal agents have raided other area compounds over the last two days in the Clarion area; one of these raids led to Kahle’s arrest. Landis has told undercover agents that he intended to assassinate Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA). David Neiwert, a progressive reporter and blogger who is an expert on right-wing terrorism, later writes of the dearth of mainstream media coverage: “Imagine, if you will, how this would have been handled were these folks of Arab extraction or believers in radical Islamist ideology instead of your garden-variety far-right American ideology. CNN would have the cameras and reporters there, NBC would host an hour discussing the threat, and [conservative bloggers] Michelle Malkin and Little Green Footballs’ Chuck Johnson would [be] bouncing around the walls of their rubber rooms even more frenetically than usual amid shouts of ‘Jihad!!!!’” [KDKA-TV, 6/9/2008; David Neiwert, 6/10/2008; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 6/12/2008; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2011] Hall, Landis, Jones, and Huet will be convicted. [Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, 3/10/2010]

Luis Ramirez, dying of head injuries suffered during a beating by four Pennsylvania teenagers. [Source: Latino Politics Blog (.com)]Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez is beaten to death in what appears to be a racially-motivated murder by a group of white teenagers in a Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, city park. Ramirez, a 25-year-old father of two children, has searched for work in Pennsylvania’s coal region since coming to America in 2002. Witness reports say that the group of “six or seven” teenagers, which includes a number of players on the Shenandoah Valley High School football team, shout racial slurs, including “stupid Mexican,” while they beat and stomp Ramirez; however, local law enforcement authorities later say race played no part in the murder. Witnesses say that the teenagers instigate the conflict by shouting at Ramirez; he briefly engages them in a fight and then walks away, but, responding to further shouts and imprecations, rushes the teenagers again. Arielle Garcia, a friend of Ramirez’s, says that she and her husband Victor Garcia attempt to break up the fight, “but kids were trying to fight my husband.” She says that the teenagers beat and kick Ramirez unconscious, and continue stomping and kicking him while the Garcias are attempting to protect him where he lies on the ground. She says that one teenager delivers a particularly forceful kick to the head, causing Ramirez to “start… shaking and foaming out of the mouth.” One of the youths who beats Ramirez later tells one of Ramirez’s Hispanic friends to tell area Hispanics to get out of Shenandoah, “or you’re going to be laying next to him.” Ramirez’s fiancee Crystal Dillman, a local resident, says Ramirez was often called derogatory names such as “dirty Mexican,” and advised to return to Mexico. “People in this town are very racist toward Hispanic people,” Dillman says. “They think right away if you’re Mexican, you’re illegal, and you’re no good.” Police chief Matthew Nestor acknowledges that the area has seen a spike in racially-motivated rhetoric and even violence in the last decade, since an influx of Hispanics swelled the area’s population. “Things are definitely not the way they used to be even 10 years ago,” Nestor says. “Things have changed here radically. Some people could adapt to the changes and some just have a difficult time doing it.… Yeah, there is tension at times. You can’t deny that.” Local reporters are denied access to the police incident log, even though it is a publically accessible document; borough manager Joseph Palubinsky says the reporters have “done enough damage already,” and refuses them access. A local newspaper writes after the murder, “[T]his tragic incident is not so much about who is responsible for America’s failed immigration policy as it is about the right of human beings to—live.” [AlterNet, 7/24/2008; Democracy Now!, 7/24/2008] Ramirez dies in a hospital two days later. Four teenagers are charged for causing his death; all four plead not guilty. Brandon Piekarsky (who delivers the fatal kick to Ramirez’s head) and Colin Walsh face homicide charges. Derrick Donchak and a juvenile, Brian Scully, face lesser charges. Dillman says: “I think they might get off, because Luis was an illegal Mexican and these are ‘all-American boys’ on the football team who get good grades, or whatever they’re saying about them. They’ll find some way to let them go.” Gladys Limon of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund calls the Ramirez murder “a case of enough is enough.… [T]his is happening all over the country, not just to illegal immigrants, but legal, and anyone who is perceived to be Latino.… I do believe that the inflammatory rhetoric in the immigration debate does have a correlation with increased violence against Latinos.” Mayor Thomas O’Neill says: “I’ve heard things like, ‘We don’t want to send our kids back to school because we’re afraid people don’t like Mexicans.’ That’s shocking to me. That is not the Shenandoah I know.” O’Neill acknowledges that since Ramirez’s death, he has learned of a number of racial incidents in Shenandoah that he says had never been brought to his attention. [New York Times, 8/5/2008; Associated Press, 5/4/2009] Garcia tells a radio reporter of the harassment she has suffered from white Shenandoah residents: “You know, like I was pregnant with my son, and they told me: ‘What’s that in your belly? Another person I’m going to have to pay for? Another Mexican on welfare?’ Like stuff like that. It’s disgusting.” [Democracy Now!, 7/24/2008] None of the four will be convicted of murdering Ramirez; instead, they will either plead guilty to, or be convicted of, far lesser charges (see May 2, 2009 and After).

The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) announces its intention to picket the July 17 funeral of former Bush administration press secretary and Fox News commentator Tony Snow. According to the WBC, Snow deserves condemnation because he was a “critic” of their group and “a high-profile representative of godless Big Media and Big Government.” A WBC press release reads as follows: “07/17/2008 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Alexandria, VA Christ Episcopal Church (Lepor [sic] Colony) 118 N. Washington St. Tony Snow (Press Secretary for 6 ‘B’ George W. Bush) is dead, YES! He had a platform, he was given some small talent by his creator. He was an unfaithful steward, and is now residing in hell. Each opportunity he had to faithfully Report what the servants at WBC had to tell this country/world, Tony Snow besmerched and vilified the words of God and the people of God.” A blogger at the right-wing Newsbusters Web site asks that the Patriot Guard Riders, a group Fox News has described as made up of “veterans, soldiers, and civilians who often ride flag-bearing motorcycles accompanying funeral processions of soldiers killed in combat to shield the famil[ies] from unwanted attention,” intervene in the protest and “stop these fools.” The protest will take place without incident. [Fox News, 2/19/2007; Think Progress, 7/14/2008; Newsbusters, 7/14/2008]

Jim Adkisson as he is escorted from the church under heavy police escort. [Source: Knoxville News Sentinel]Jim David Adkisson of Powell, Tennessee, enters the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church (TVUUC) in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the morning performance of a children’s play, Annie Jr., and opens fire. Two people die from gunshot wounds; seven others are injured. No children are injured by Adkisson’s shooting spree. Greg McKendry, an usher, is shot while trying to protect members of the congregation and dies immediately. Linda Kraeger is shot in the face and dies shortly thereafter. Betty Barnhart, Joe Barnhart, Jack Barnhart, Linda Chavez, Allison Lee, Tammy Sommers, and John Worth Jr., are injured, three critically. [UUWorld, 7/28/2008]Shooting - Adkisson enters the church quietly and removes a 12-gauge semiautomatic shotgun from a guitar case. He gets off three shots before being wrestled to the ground by church members. [NBC News, 7/18/2008; UUWorld, 7/28/2008] (Early news reports claim Adkisson fires up to 13 shots, a contention that is later proven erroneous.) [Agence France-Presse, 7/27/2008] According to eyewitness Sheila Bowen, the music director sees the shooting and yells, “Get the hell out of here, everybody!” [New York Times, 7/28/2008] “We heard the first shot,” says eyewitness Marty Murphy. “It sounded like a bomb went off. We thought it was part of the program at first. The second shot is when everyone started calling 911 and telling everyone to get down.” [Knoxville News Sentinel, 7/28/2008] During the shooting, Adkisson shouts “hateful things,” according to witness Barbara Kemper, who minutes later attempts to comfort a young boy whose mother is wounded in the head by Adkisson’s shots. Kemper will not give details of what Adkisson shouts. [Knoxville News Sentinel, 7/27/2008] Adkisson has a large cache of ammunition in his possession, but is unable to reload his weapon before being restrained; one of the congregants who tackles Adkisson, Jamie Parkey, later says that he and his fellow members “dog piled” Adkisson to the floor. “He had the gun leveled in our direction,” Parkey later tells a reporter. “That’s when I pushed my mother and daughter to the floor and got under the pew. When I saw the men rushing him was when I got up to join them.” Another eyewitness, Marty Murphy, later recalls: “There were shotgun shells all over the place, so he must have thought he was going to get more shots in. He had those shells everywhere.” Parkey’s 16-year-old daughter is in the play; his six-year-old daughter is in the sanctuary with Parkey. Neither are injured, though the younger daughter is extremely upset and covered in a victim’s blood. Police respond to the shooting within minutes and arrest Adkisson. Members Mark and Becky Harmon witness the shootings; Becky Harmon later tells a reporter: “Within seconds people were tackling him. The hardest part was there were so many children there and they all had to see this. It was just devastating.” [NBC News, 7/18/2008; Knoxville News Sentinel, 7/27/2008; UUWorld, 7/28/2008] Bowen says one of the men to wrestle Adkisson to the ground, history professor John Bohstedt, thought for a time that Adkisson had a bomb with him. She says of Bohstedt: “He moved very quickly and he assessed the situation very quickly. He’s sitting on this guy. He had a package with him, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and John was afraid that that might be a bomb, so John was screaming at everyone to get out.” The package turns out to be a prop for the play. [New York Times, 7/28/2008] Two witnesses call the first victim, McKendry, a hero for attempting to protect other congregants. “Greg McKendry stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us,” says Kemper. Taylor Bessette, McKendry’s foster son, adds, “Make sure everyone knows that Greg McKendry was a hero, a total hero.” McKendry acted as a human shield to protect the children on stage. “He stood in front of the bullets and… actually took the bullets to save the child,” Bessette says. [Knoxville News Sentinel, 7/27/2008; Knoxville News Sentinel, 7/27/2008] Amira Parkey, a teenaged friend of Bissette’s, says of Adkisson: “This guy does not realize how many lives he totally destroyed. People who do this, they think they’ve got problems, but they destroy so many other people’s lives.” [New York Times, 7/28/2008]Reactions from Congregation, Others - Parkey later says: “For the situation, everyone responded phenomenally. [Two TVUUC members] mobilized and got the kids out the back.” The play’s director, Vicki Masters, calls for the children to evacuate the building, and another woman ushers the children to a nearby Presbyterian church after Adkisson is subdued. “Everybody did exactly what they needed to do,” says Parkey’s wife Amy Broyles. “There was very little panic, very little screaming or hysteria. It’s a remarkable congregation of people. I’ve never seen such a loving response to such an overwhelming tragedy.” TVUUC member Mark Harmon says: “This is a very courageous congregation. Not just the three or four people who tackled the gunman, but also the religious education director who got the children out of the way, and the people afterward who consoled each other.” Unitarian Universalist Association president William G. Sinkford says after the shooting: “A tragedy such as this makes us acutely conscious of the beauty and fragility of our lives and those of our loved ones. I am especially saddened by this intrusion of violence into a worship service involving children and youth. I know that many people, both in Knoxville and around the country, are struggling with shock and grief right now. I pray that those so affected will find strength and comfort.” Parkey and Broyles are at the church to visit, but after the day’s events, they decide to join the church. Broyles later tells a reporter, “Now that this has happened, having experienced that with them today, we definitely want to be part of this congregation.” [NBC News, 7/18/2008; UUWorld, 7/28/2008]Personal, Racial, Political Motives for Shooting - Adkisson apparantly has both personal and political motives for the shooting. His ex-wife, Liza Anderson, had been a member of the church years before, which may have been a personal reason for him selecting the church as the target of his violence. Additionally, Adkisson seems to have been triggered by a virulent hatred of liberals, blacks, gays, and Jews. Police find a four-page statement written by him in his car. According to Knoxville Police Department Chief Sterling Owen IV, Adkisson’s shooting was motivated by his “hatred of the liberal movement.… Liberals in general, as well as gays.” Owen also says that Adkisson blames liberals for his failure to get a job (see July 27, 2008 and After). TVUUC, like many UU churches, is active on behalf of the gay community. [UUWorld, 7/28/2008; Associated Press, 7/28/2008] “It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement,” Owen says. And a longtime acquaintance, Carol Smallwood, tells a reporter that Adkisson is a loner who hates “blacks, gays, and anyone different from him.” In 2000, Adkisson’s ex-wife, Alexander, took out an order of protection against Adkisson, telling police that Adkisson often drank heavily and had threatened “to blow my brains out and then blow his own brains out.” She told a judge that she was “in fear for my life and what he might do.” [Chancery Court of Anderson County, Tennessee, 3/1/2000 ; Associated Press, 7/28/2008; CNN, 7/28/2008]Guilty Plea - Several months later, Adkisson will plead guilty to the shootings, and will release the document to the press (see February 9, 2009).

A selection from Adkisson’s ‘manifesto’ explaining his desire to kill liberals. [Source: Jim David Adkisson / Crooks and Liars] (click image to enlarge)Jim David Adkisson, a former Army mechanic held on first degree murder charges in lieu of a $1 million bail after killing two people and wounding seven at a Knoxville, Tennessee, church (see July 27, 2008) [NBC News, 7/18/2008; Associated Press, 7/28/2008; CNN, 7/28/2008] , apparently chose to kill members of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church (TVUUC) because the church is considered a liberal organization. This conclusion is drawn from statements to the police and a rambling four-page document found in his car. In those statements and the document, Adkisson expresses his intense hatred of liberals, blacks, and homosexuals. He tells police that he opened fire in the church because he “wanted to kill liberals,” and the TVUUC has a reputation as one of Knoxville’s gathering places for liberals. “That church had received some publicity in the recent past regarding its liberal stance on things,” says Knoxville police chief Sterling Owen, “and that is at least one of the issues we believe caused that church to be targeted.” Adkisson will express no remorse whatsoever for his crimes [Adkisson, 7/27/2008 ; Guardian, 7/28/2008; New York Times, 7/29/2008; ReligionDispatches (.org), 2/10/2009] , later saying that if given the chance, he would do the same thing again (see February 9, 2009), and characterizes his motives as rooted in patriotism. [Adkisson, 7/27/2008 ; Knoxville News Sentinel, 2/10/2009] He writes that he expected to be in the church until police arrived, and ultimately to be slain by police. [Adkisson, 7/27/2008 ; Knoxville News Sentinel, 2/10/2009] Police later add that evidence shows Adkisson planned the shooting for a week, but as Owen notes, “I’m sure this is something that’s been building a long time.” [Guardian, 7/28/2008] Friends and neighbors tell of an angry, embittered man who hates extravagantly and blames others for his misfortunes, though some describe him as “friendly” and recall him spending a lot of time on his motorcycle. [Fox News, 7/28/2008; Knoxville News Sentinel, 7/28/2008] “Adkisson was a loner who hates blacks, gays, and anyone different from him,” says longtime acquaintance Carol Smallwood. [Raw Story, 7/28/2008]Hate Crime - Police are determining whether to charge Adkisson with the commission of a hate crime. [CNN, 7/28/2008] Knox County commissioner Mark Harmon, a member of the church, says that knowing of Adkisson’s feelings towards liberals and gays “does clarify just what type of hate crime this was. Regardless of motivations, when someone comes into your house of worship and shoots a shotgun indiscriminately it’s an earth-shattering act of hatred.” [New York Times, 7/29/2008]Frustration at Unemployment - The document found in Adkisson’s car is divided into four parts. The first gives some details about Adkisson’s frustration at being unable to find a job, a situation for which he blames unnamed “liberals.” Adkisson writes that he is a former soldier and accomplished husband who cannot find work as a mechanic, and whose wife left him. “Over the years, I’ve had some good jobs, but I always got layed [sic] off,” he wrote. “Now I’m 58 years old and I can’t get a decent job. I’m told I’m ‘over qualified,’ which is a code word for ‘too damned old,’ like I’m expected to age gracefully in poverty. No thanks! I’m done.” [Adkisson, 7/27/2008 ; ReligionDispatches (.org), 2/10/2009; Knoxville News Sentinel, 2/10/2009] Police later report that Adkisson was on the verge of losing his government-subsidized food stamps when he went on his shooting spree. [Raw Story, 7/28/2008]Hatred of Liberals - The document quickly turns to Adkisson’s deep hatred of liberals. “[Democrats] are all a bunch of traitors,” Adkisson writes. “Liberals have attacked every major institution that made America great.” He continues: “I’ve always wondered why I was put on the earth.… [L]ately I’ve been feeling helpless in our war on terrorism. But I realized I could engage the terrorists’ allies here in America. The best allies they’ve got.” He slams the “liberal Supreme Court Justices” and Washington Democrats, and spends some vitriol on President Obama, whom he calls “Osama Hussein Obama,” a “radical leftist” who “looks like Curious George.” A police affidavit reads in part: “He felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets. Because he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement… he would then target those that had voted them into office.” As a generalization, Adkisson writes, “Liberals are a pest like termites, millions of them… the only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is kill them in the streets, kill them where they gather.” [Adkisson, 7/27/2008 ; CNN, 7/28/2008; ReligionDispatches (.org), 2/10/2009; Knoxville News Sentinel, 2/10/2009]Hatred of TVUUC - Adkisson then turns to his hatred of the TVUUC, which he calls a “cult” that “worships the God of Secularism” and a “den of un-American vipers.” He accuses the church of elitism and hypocrisy, saying it accepts “perverts” but hates conservatives, and asks, “[H]ow is a white woman having a niger [sic] baby progress?” He calls the church members “ultra liberals” who are “foot soldiers” for liberals in government. “Don’t let the word church mislead you,” he writes. “This isn’t a church, it’s a cult. They don’t even believe in God. They worship the God of secularism.… The UU church is the fountainhead, the veritable wellspring of anti-American organizations.” Adkisson’s motivation to attack this specific church may have a personal element; he writes of the church: “They embrace every pervert that comes down the pike, but if they find out your [sic] a conservative, they absolutely hate you. I know. I experienced it.” [Adkisson, 7/27/2008 ; ReligionDispatches (.org), 2/10/2009; Knoxville News Sentinel, 2/10/2009] A former neighbor of Adkisson’s, Karen Massey, says that Adkisson may hate the idea of religion altogether. She recalls a conversation she had with him centering on the news that her daughter had just graduated from a nearby Bible college. After she explained that she was a Christian, Massey recalls: “He almost turned angry. He seemed to get angry at that. He said that everything in the Bible contradicts itself if you read it.” Massey recalls Adkisson frequently complaining about his parents, who apparently “made him go to church all his life.… He acted like he was forced to do that.” [Fox News, 7/28/2008]'Hate Crime' - Adkisson writes flatly, “This was a hate Crime [and] a Political Protest.” He continues: “This was a Symbolic Killing.… I wanted to kill every Democrat in the Senate” and other such places, as well as “everyone in the Mainstream Media,” but since “I couldn’t get to the generals and high ranking officers… I went after the foot soldiers, the chickensh_t liberals that vote in these traitorous people.” He concludes his document by explaining: “No one gets out of this world alive so I’ve chosen to skip the bad years of poverty.… The future looks bleak. I’m absolutely fed up! So I thought I’d do something good for this country—kill Democrats ‘til (sic) the cops kill me.… Liberals are a pest like termites… the only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is kill them in the streets.… I’d like to encourage other like-minded people to do what I’ve done. If life ain’t worth living anymore, don’t just kill yourself… kill liberals. Tell the cop that killed me that I said, ‘Thanks, I needed that.’” [Adkisson, 7/27/2008 ; ReligionDispatches (.org), 2/10/2009]Police: Apartment Contains Right-Wing Books - A police search reveals that Adkisson’s home contains brass knuckles, empty boxes of shotgun shells, a handgun, and an array of right-wing political books. Before the search, Adkisson tells police that he left the door unlocked for them because, he says, “he expected to be killed during the assault.” Among the books found by the police: Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage, Let Freedom Ring by Fox News and radio talk show host Sean Hannity, and The O’Reilly Factor, by Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly. [Raw Story, 7/28/2008; Knoxville News Sentinel, 7/28/2008]Reactions - Mark Hulsether of ReligionDispatches (.org) writes that Americans need to look at Adkisson’s document “squarely and soberly—both the pain and despair (and apparently sincere patriotism) underlying the manifesto, as well as its sensationally hateful, twisted, and violent ideas. It is time for people from across the political spectrum—not only liberals but also sincere people on the right, as well as people in the mainstream media who too-often enable the far right—to use today’s news as a wake-up call. Discourses that demonize ‘liberalism’ and/or treat such demonizing as a harmless joke (as when Ann Coulter called for terrorists to bomb the New York Times building) seem even less funny today than they did yesterday.” [ReligionDispatches (.org), 2/10/2009] After learning of some of Adkisson’s beliefs and statements, Amy Broyles, who was at the church the day of the shooting, will tell a reporter that Adkisson “was a man who was hurt in the world and feeling that nothing was going his way. He turned the gun on people who were mostly likely to treat him lovingly and compassionately and be the ones to help someone in that situation.” [Associated Press, 7/28/2008]

The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a small, virulently anti-gay organization in Topeka, Kansas, led by pastor Fred Phelps (see November 27, 1955 and After), announces its intention to travel to Canada to protest at the funeral of a man murdered on a Greyhound bus in that nation. In response, Canada bars WBC members from entering the country. The funeral will proceed without incident. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] The WBC later claims to have evaded Canadian border patrol officials and successfully staged its protest. [Anti-Defamation League, 2012] WBC’s attempts to picket in Canada will result in Canada’s first hate-crime law, known informally as the “Fred Phelps Law.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012]

Jeffrey Taylor at the press conference. [Source: Agence France-Presse / Getty Images]The FBI holds a press conference laying out their evidence against recently deceased anthrax attacks suspect Bruce Ivins. Some evidence is unsealed by a judge, and US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor presents the evidence to the media several hours later. Taylor says, “We consider Dr. Ivins was the sole person responsible for this attack.” Government investigators also allege: Ivins alone controlled anthrax flask RMR-1029, which matches the anthrax used in the attacks (see February 22-27, 2002). Taylor says RMR-1029 was “created and solely maintained” by Ivins and that no one else could have had access to it without going through him. Ivins worked an unusual amount of overtime in his lab around the time the anthrax letters were mailed and he could not give a good reason why. In counseling sessions, he allegedly threatened to kill people. He also sent a threatening email to a friend involved in the case. He sent a defective anthrax sample when asked to send a sample to investigators (see February 22-27, 2002). He was having severe psychological problems at the time of the attacks. At one point, he told a colleague that he “feared that he might not be able to control his behavior” (see April-August 2000 and September-December 2001). Print defects in envelopes used in the letters suggest they were bought at a post office in 2001 in Frederick, Maryland, where he had an account. He was re-immunized against anthrax in early September 2001. He sent an e-mail a few days before the anthrax attacks warning that “Bin Laden terrorists” had access to anthrax. This e-mail allegedly used similar language as the anthrax letters. He frequently wrote letters to the editor and often drove to other locations to disguise his identity as the sender of documents. [BBC, 8/6/2008; US Department of Justice, 8/6/2008]But many are not impressed with the FBI’s case. Over the next two days, the editorial boards at the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal argue that an independent inquiry should review and judge the evidence against Ivins (see August 7, 2008, August 7, 2008, and August 8, 2008). Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald will note, “One critical caveat to keep at the forefront of one’s mind is that when one side is in exclusive possession of all documents and can pick and choose which ones to release in full or in part in order to make their case, while leaving out the parts that undercut the picture they want to paint—which is exactly what the FBI is doing here—then it is very easy to make things look however you want.” [Salon, 8/6/2008]

The New York Times reports that “in interviews last week, two dozen bioterrorism experts, veteran investigators, and members of Congress expressed doubts about the FBI’s conclusions” about deceased anthrax attacks suspect Bruce Ivins, and many “do not think the [FBI] has proved its case” against him. For instance: Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) says, “My conclusion at this point is that it’s very much an open matter.… There are some very serious questions that have yet to be answered and need to be made public.” Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) says, “If the case is solved, why isn’t it solved? It’s all very suspicious, and you wonder whether or not the FBI doesn’t have something to cover up and that they don’t want to come clean.” Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) says, “[The FBI] took their shot… They hoped and maybe believed that the case they laid out would persuade everyone. I think they’re probably surprised by the level of skepticism.” Bioterrorism expert Dr. Thomas Inglesby says, “For a lot of the scientific community, the word would be agnostic.… They still don’t feel they have enough information to judge whether the case has been solved.” Dr. Ralph Frerichs, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, says, “There’s no clarity on the simplest aspect: is [making the anthrax used in the attacks] hard to do or easy to do?” Dr. Gerry Andrews, who once served as Ivins’s boss at USAMRIID, says, “Despite the FBI’s scientific and circumstantial evidence, I and many of Dr. Ivins’s former colleagues don’t believe he did it and don’t believe the spore preparations were made at [USAMRIID]” (see August 1-10, 2008). Officials have acknowledged “that they did not have a single, definitive piece of evidence indisputably proving that Dr. Ivins mailed the letters—no confession, no trace of his DNA on the letters, no security camera recording the mailings in Princeton, [New Jersey.]” But the Times also notes, “Even the strongest skeptics acknowledged that the bureau had raised troubling questions about Dr. Ivins’s mental health and had made a strong scientific case linking the mailed anthrax to a supply in his laboratory. But they said the bureau’s piecemeal release of information, in search warrant affidavits and in briefings for reporters and Congress, had left significant gaps in the trail that led to Dr. Ivins and had failed to explain how investigators ruled out at least 100 other people who the bureau acknowledged had access to the same flasks of anthrax.” [New York Times, 9/6/2008]

A Web graphic accusing presidential candidate Barack Obama of beginning his political career in the home of college professor William Ayers. [Source: Kickin and Screamin (.com)]Republican vice-presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) accuses Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) of “palling around with terrorists” who intend to attack American targets. Palin, telling audiences in Colorado and California that it is “time to take the gloves off,” says Obama has ties to the 1960s-era radical group Weather Underground through an acquaintance, University of Illinois at Chicago professor William Ayers. Obama, Palin says, “is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” The Weather Underground was once labeled a domestic terrorist group by the FBI. Ayers served on a board with Obama and held a fundraiser for Obama’s Senate run in 1995. Obama has condemned Ayers’s connections with the Weather Underground, and most media organizations have discounted any ties between the two men. The Weather Underground has been defunct for decades. Palin says she is not attempting to “pick a fight” with Obama, but is telling campaign audiences about Obama and Ayers because “it was there in the New York Times… and they are hardly ever wrong.” Ayers, she says, “was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and US Capitol.’ Wow. These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes.… This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America. We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for for all of us.” Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan condemns Palin’s remarks, and cites a list of media outlets that have debunked the so-called Obama-Ayers connection. “Governor Palin’s comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign’s statement this morning that they would be launching Swiftboat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation’s economic ills,” Sevugan writes. He also notes that the New York Times is one of the media outlets that debunked the connection, stating, “In fact, the very newspaper story Governor Palin cited in hurling her shameless attack made clear that Senator Obama is not close to Bill Ayers, much less ‘pals,’ and that he has strongly condemned the despicable acts Ayers committed 40 years ago, when Obama was eight.” The Obama campaign calls the attempt by the McCain-Palin campaign to link Obama to Ayers part of a campaign of “dishonest, dishonorable assaults against Barack Obama.” [Christian Science Monitor, 10/5/2008]

Two members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) debate Professor Jose Gabilondo on Amendment 2, a Florida Constitutional referendum, which, if passed, would ban same-sex marriages. The two WBC members are Shirley Phelps-Roper (see October 2-3, 2006) and Margie Phelps, accompanied by Shirley’s daughter, Megan. Phelps-Roper has become the church’s most prominent member now that church founder Fred Phelps, 79, has apparently succumbed to age and declining health, and no longer plays as prominent a role in church affairs. The debate occurs at Gabilondo’s school, Florida International University, where he is the faculty adviser to a gay group at FIU’s Colege of Law. When Gabilondo registered his dismay at the invitation, one alumnus suggested that he suffered from a “lack of testicular fortitude.” Controversy over Invitation of WBC - Amendment 2 supporters complained that the two WBC members were invited in order to cast Amendment 2 in the worst possible light. Faith2Action leader Janet Folger says of the decision to invite WBC: “That’s the most heinous thing I’ve ever heard. They go to the most radical group. It’s a deliberate attempt to make the pro-marriage people appear to be something they’re not.” Another supporter accuses Gabilondo of trying to set up an unfair confrontation between himself and “some mentally inbred misfits from Kansas.” And a local newspaper columnist called the WBC “a bottom-feeding group,” and said the pro-amendment case should be made by someone else. However, Gabilondo said more mainstream proponents declined to attend the debate, and, moreover, he “think[s] it’s a mistake to distinguish between respectable homophobia and unacceptable homophobia.” The Debate - On the morning of the debate, the WBC Web site (see 1997) declares that its two members would engage FIU’s “feces eaters” in debate. Two police officers are on hand at the event, and debate organizers warn the audience of some 50 members to refrain from clapping or booing during the discussion, and Gabilondo says privately that he will cut the event short if it becomes rowdy. He tells the WBC representatives that he supports their freedom of speech and appreciates their candor. “He’s a friendly fellow and a likeable fellow,” Margie Phelps later says, but that does not staunch their rhetoric. During the debate, Phelps admonishes the audience to follow the Bible’s teaching of being fruitful and multiplying. “It doesn’t matter how long you anally copulate, you will not bear children,” she says. Children of divorced parents or who have gay parents “would have been better off stillborn,” she adds. While she speaks, her sister displays photographs of drag queens, gay pride parades, death, and devastation. “You embrace fags, which God calls abomination,” Phelps-Roper says. “You teach your children to be whores. Now you sprint to your destruction.” After the discussion, the two sisters pose with Gabilondo for photographs. Phelps-Roper insists that she does not hate homosexuals, saying: “The standard of loving your neighbor is warning them their behavior can send them to hell. It’s only a kindness to tell them… they’re going to hell.” [Orlando Sun-Sentinel, 10/16/2008; Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2009]

Conservative radio host Lars Larson says that President Obama intends to make gun ownership illegal. Larson tells his listeners, “I’m worried that when he starts naming people to the court, when that—when that happens, and it’s likely to during his administration, we’re going to end up with justices who think they can break free of the constraints of the Constitution—perhaps on the Second Amendment, one of my favorites.” Larson later reads a letter from a listener stating: “Lars, I’ve always said that if the gun-grabbers come to my front door and demand my guns due to some unconstitutional law being passed by the loony lefties in Washington, DC, I’ll have no choice but to hand them over. However, they will receive all of my ammunition first, all of it, just as fast as I can possibly give it to them.” [Media Matters, 4/9/2009]

Secret Service officials blame the inflammatory campaign rhetoric of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin (R-AK) for an upsurge in death threats against president-elect Barack Obama (D-IL) in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. During the campaign, Palin accused Obama of consorting with terrorists, citing his association with 1960s antiwar radical William Ayers (see October 4-5, 2008). According to the Secret Service, “The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling ‘terrorist’ and ‘kill him’ until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric” (see October 15, 2008). The Secret Service says it has evidence that some white supremacists may have used Palin’s words as encouragement to issue credible and specific death threats. During the campaign, Obama’s wife Michelle, upset by one such report, asked her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett, “Why would they try to make people hate us?” A report by security and intelligence analysts Stratfor, coinciding with the Secret Service’s announcement, warns that Obama remains a high-risk target for racist assassins. The report finds: “Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season and several more remain under investigation. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues.” McCain campaign aides blame Palin for engaging in heated rhetorical attacks on Obama, including direct accusations of him being un-American, without the knowledge or approval of McCain. Palin has retorted that these campaign aides are “jerks” who took her words “out of context,” saying: “I consider [their criticisms] cowardly. It’s not true. That’s cruel, it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks if they came away taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news that’s not fair and not right.” Palin claims she was victimized by sexist reporters and news commentators during the campaign. [Daily Telegraph, 11/8/2008]

Allen Michael Goff, a member of the Creativity Movement (see 2009) from Billings, Montana, is charged with felony assault with a weapon after shooting a Hispanic teenager in the leg after a party. Goff, 17, is charged as an adult because prosecutors say the shooting is racially motivated. When the court refuses to allow evidence of Goff’s membership in the Creativity Movement to be introduced in his trial, Goff pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, and a jury acquits him of the felony charge. He is given six months’ probation and fined $150. Two days after the verdict, Goff confronts Travis McAdam, executive director of the Montana Human Rights Network, who is presiding over an exhibit featuring the literature and beliefs of the Creativity Movement. Goff accuses McAdam of ruining his life. “We’ve always felt he was one of the ringleaders,” McAdam says. “I think what that encounter showed everyone is that he’s going to feel more emboldened now.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010]

The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a small, virulently anti-gay organization in Topeka, Kansas, led by pastor Fred Phelps (see November 27, 1955 and After), announces its intention to travel to the United Kingdom to protest a performance of The Laramie Project, a highly respected play that documents the hate murder of gay student Matthew Shepard and how the incident impacted the Wyoming community (see October 14, 1998). The WBC protested at Shepard’s funeral, and tried unsuccessfully to raise a “monument” to Shepard vilifying him for being gay (see October 3, 2003). In response, the UK bans both Phelps and WBC church leader Shirley Phelps-Roper from entering its borders. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012]

An unrepentant Jim Adkisson, right, shares a laugh with his lawyer Mark Stephens during Adkisson’s court proceedings. [Source: Lisa Hudson / AP]Jim David Adkisson, charged with killing two and wounding seven in his attack on a Tennessee church congregation (see July 27, 2008), pleads guilty to all charges in a Knoxville, Tennessee, courthouse. Adkisson has accepted a sentence of life in prison. District Attorney General Randall Nichols tells the court that Adkisson “knowingly created a great risk of death to two or more persons other than the victims murdered,” and that the murders “were committed in the course of an act of terrorism.” In his explanation for his actions, given in a four-page document found in his car in the minutes after the shooting (see July 27, 2008 and After), Adkisson said his motives were rooted in patriotism and a desire to kill political liberals. The same day he pleads guilty, Adkisson releases the document to the press, though the local sheriff denies him access to reporters who may wish to interview him. Adkisson’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, says he advised Adkisson to go to trial using an insanity defense, but Adkisson refused, saying the plea deal is “the honorable thing to do.” Stephens adds: “He pled guilty to everything he was charged with. He accepted his responsibility. I’m sorry for those folks that went through that ordeal.” One of the congregation members who wrestled Adkisson to the ground during the shooting spree, John Bohstedt, responds to Stephens’s contention by saying: “There’s no insanity defense that I can see, unbalance, yes, bitter, yes, evil, yes.… I’m sickened that he shows no signs of remorse.” Tammy Sommers, who is recuperating from shotgun wounds inflicted by Adkisson, says, “He needs to stay in prison, which is what’s happening.” A convict who spent time in jail with Adkisson, Matthew David Chamberlain, says Adkisson told him that the motive behind the attack was purely ideological. “He said if he got out [of prison], he’d do it again,” Chamberlain says. Local citizen Brian Griffith believes Chamberlain is correct, and echoes the sentiments of many local residents by saying he was offended by Adkisson’s demeanor in court. “Today, he just sat there and sneered and seemed proud of it,” Griffith says. Church choir leader Vicki Masters, a witness to the shootings, agrees. “When he first came out into the courtroom, he had a look of sheer evil, he really did—evil as well as arrogance,” she says. “And he sat down after he looked around, and then he used his third finger to scratch the back of his head, with an air of arrogance and just pure evil. Those are the only words I can use to describe what I saw.” However, many church members say they are glad Adkisson chose to accept a plea, thus avoiding the necessity of the children who witnessed the shooting having to relive it in court. The Reverend William Sinkford, president of the Universalist Unitarian Society, says, “I am glad that the perpetrator is able to acknowledge publicly in the legal process what he did, and I am also glad that this community and church are not subjected to public trial.” [CNN, 2/9/2009; Knoxville News Sentinel, 2/10/2009; WATE, 2/10/2009]

A newly released government threat analysis shows that slain trust-fund millionaire James G. Cummings, an American Nazi sympathizer from Maine who was killed by his wife Amber in December 2008, possessed the radioactive components necessary to build a so-called “dirty bomb.” Cummings, infuriated by the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, purchased depleted uranium over the Internet from an American company. FBI Confiscates Radioactive Materials - The Bangor Daily News reports, “According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings’s home after his shooting death on December 9.” According to the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center: “Amber [Cummings] indicated James was very upset with Barack Obama being elected president. She indicated James had been in contact with ‘white supremacist group(s).’ Amber also indicated James mixed chemicals in the kitchen sink at their residence and had mentioned ‘dirty bombs.’” An FBI search of the Cummings home found four jars of depleted uranium-238 labeled “uranium metal” and the name of an unidentified US corporation, another jar labeled “thorium” and containing that material, and a second, unlabeled jar which also contained thorium-232. Other materials found in Cummings’s home were consistent with the manufacture of an explosive device, which if detonated could have spread radioactive debris throughout a relatively large local area. The FBI also found information on how to build “dirty bombs,” and information about cesium-137, strontium-90, cobalt-60, and other radioactive materials. FBI evidence shows Cummings had numerous ties to a variety of right-wing white supremacist groups. Cummings also owned a collection of Nazi memorabilia which, according to local tradesmen, he proudly displayed throughout his home. Police reports show that Cummings has a long history of violence. Amber Cummings contends she is innocent of her husband’s murder by reason of insanity, and claims she suffered years of mental, physical, and sexual abuse at his hands. The Department of Homeland Security has refused to comment on the incident. [Bangor Daily News, 2/10/2009; Raw Story, 3/9/2009] Local law enforcement officials downplay the threat Cummings posed, and the national media virtually ignores the story. [Time, 9/30/2010]Later Information Shows Depth of Threat Posed by Cummings - Additional information gleaned by Time reporter Barton Gellman from Cummings’s notes and records later shows that the threat posed by Cummings was even more serious than initially reported. Cummings had applied to join the National Socialist Party (the American Nazi organization), and had detailed plans on how to assassinate President-elect Obama. Gellman will call Cummings “a viciously angry and resourceful man who had procured most of the supplies for a crude radiological dispersal device and made some progress in sketching a workable design.” Gellman says that in his attempt to construct a nuclear weapon, Cummings “was far ahead of Jose Padilla, the accused al-Qaeda dirty-bomb plotter (see June 10, 2002), and more advanced in his efforts than any previously known domestic threat involving a dirty bomb.” The materials were later confirmed to be the radioactive materials they were labeled as being; Amber Cummings will say that her husband bought them under the pretense of conducting legal research for a university. Although the materials Cummings had would not, themselves, succeed in unleashing large amounts of radiation over a large area, he was actively searching for three ingredients that would serve such a purpose: cobalt-60, cesium-137, and strontium-90. He had succeeded in manufacturing large amounts of TATP, an explosive favored by Islamist suicide bombers and brought on board an aircraft by “shoe bomber” Richard Reid (see December 22, 2001). “His intentions were to construct a dirty bomb and take it to Washington to kill President Obama,” Amber Cummings says. “He was planning to hide it in the undercarriage of our motor home.” She says her husband had practiced crossing checkpoints with dangerous materials aboard, taking her and their daughter along for an image of innocence. Maine state police detective Michael McFadden, who participated in the investigation throughout, says he came to believe that James Cummings posed “a legitimate threat” of a major terrorist attack. “When you’re cooking thorium and uranium under your kitchen sink, when you have a couple million dollars sitting in the bank and you’re hell-bent on doing something, I think at that point you become someone we want to sit up and pay attention to,” he says. “If she didn’t do what she did, maybe we would know Mr. Cummings a lot better than we do right now.” [Time, 9/30/2010]

Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck has a special segment called “War Games” during the week’s broadcasts. In today’s show, he is joined by former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer (see February 1996) and retired Army Sergeant Major, Tim Strong. The three discuss what they say is the upcoming “civil war” in America, which, they assert, will be led by “citizen militias” made up of principled, ideologically correct conservatives. Beck says that he “believes we’re on this road.” The three decide among themselves that the US military would refuse to obey President Obama’s orders to subdue the insurrection and would instead join with “the people” in “defending the Constitution” against the government. [Salon, 2/22/2009] Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin’s blog “Hot Air” features an entry that calls Beck’s rhetoric “implausible” and “nutty.” [Hot Air, 2/22/2009]

Oath Keepers logo, as pictured on a T-shirt sold on the organization’s Web site. [Source: Oath Keepers (.com)]The Oath Keepers, a newly formed far-right “patriot” organization whose membership is restricted to soldiers, police officers, firefighters, and military veterans (see March 2010), is formed at a pro-militia rally in Lexington, Massachusetts, the site of the first battle of the Revolutionary War. It is founded by Army veteran and lawyer Stewart Rhodes, who delivers a fiery speech at the rally. “You need to be alert and aware to the reality of how close we are to having our constitutional republic destroyed,” he tells the assemblage. “Every dictatorship in the history of mankind, whether it is fascist, communist, or whatever, has always set aside normal procedures of due process under times of emergency.… We can’t let that happen here. We need to wake up!” The crowd of listeners includes many well-known “patriot movement” members, including Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who refused to enforce the federal Brady law (see November 30, 1993) in his jurisdiction; Mike Vanderboegh of the “Three Percenter” movement (see October 1995 and After); and others. Rhodes gives the rally his group’s “Orders We Will Not Obey,” a list of 10 orders he considers unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable, whether they are issued by commanding officers, policemen, or the president. When Rhodes finishes, Captain Larry Bailey, a retired Navy SEAL who leads a group called Gathering of Eagles, asks the crowd to raise their right hands and retake their oath—not to the president, but to the Constitution. [Mother Jones, 3/2010]Posting the 'Orders' - On the Oath Keepers blog, Rhodes posts the “Orders We Will Not Obey” along with an introductory statement culled from the speech given by then-General George Washington before the Battle of Long Island: “The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army.” Rhodes writes: “Such a time is near at hand again. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this Army—and this Marine Corps, This Air Force, This Navy and the National Guard and police units of these sovereign states.” He calls the Oath Keepers “non-partisan,” and issues his list of orders they will refuse to obey, calling these “acts of war” against the American people “and thus acts of treason.” He cites Revolutionary War actions and precedents for each of his 10 statements. “1. We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.” Rhodes explains that this means the government will not attempt to restrain gun ownership in any way, and states his group’s opposition to any bans on assault rifles or any attempts to enforce gun regulation or registration. “2. We will NOT obey any order to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects—such as warrantless house-to-house searches for weapons or persons.” Rhodes compares these to the Revolutionary War-era “writs of assistance,” carried out by British soldiers against American colonists without judicial orders. The Constitution proscribes warrantless searches, Rhodes says. “We expect that sweeping warrantless searches of homes and vehicles, under some pretext, will be the means used to attempt to disarm the people,” he writes, and says Oath Keepers will not follow such orders. “3. We will NOT obey any order to detain American citizens as ‘unlawful enemy combatants’ or to subject them to trial by military tribunal.” Any such detentions (see June 26, 2002 and June 9, 2002) are unconstitutional, harking back to Revolutionary War-era admiralty courts and the British “star chambers.” Rhodes predicts that the federal government will attempt to detain its own citizens under international law. “4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a ‘state of emergency’ on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state’s legislature and governor.” Rhodes fears that “states of emergency” will be declared in the aftermath of a natural disaster such as a hurricane or a massive flood, or perhaps another 9/11-level terror attack, and then used to impose tyranny and martial law on the American populace. “5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union.” As many as 20 individual states have either passed or considered what Rhodes calls “courageous resolutions affirming states rights and sovereignty” that take powers from the federal government and give them over to the states. The federal government may attempt to use force to retake these powers, Rhodes writes, especially if a state attempts to secede or declare itself of equal sovereignty with the federal government. “6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.” One of Rhodes’s most strongly stated fears is what he believes will be the attempts of the federal government to build concentration camps and detain citizens. “7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.” “8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on US soil against the American people to ‘keep the peace’ or to ‘maintain control’ during any emergency, or under any other pretext. We will consider such use of foreign troops against our people to be an invasion and an act of war.” Rhodes believes that the US government may use foreign troops, perhaps under the auspices of the United Nations, to conduct military operations against its own citizenry. “9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, under any emergency pretext whatsoever.” “10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.” Rhodes concludes: “The above list is not exhaustive but we do consider them to be clear tripwires—they form our ‘line in the sand’—and if we receive such orders, we will not obey them. Further, we will know that the time for another American Revolution is nigh. If you the people decide that you have no recourse, and such a revolution comes, at that time, not only will we NOT fire upon our fellow Americans who righteously resist such egregious violations of their God given rights, we will join them in fighting against those who dare attempt to enslave them.… The mission of Oath Keepers is to vastly increase their numbers. We are in a battle for the hearts and minds of our own troops. Help us win it.” [Stewart Rhodes, 3/9/2009] Army spokesman Nathan Banks will remind the members that following through on their Oath Keepers pledge could mean serious repercussions. “You have every right to disobey an order if you think it is illegal,” Banks will say. “But you will face court-martial, and so help you God if you are wrong. Saying something isn’t constitutional isn’t going to fly.” Associated with Tea Party Movement - After the 2009 rally, Rhodes’s organization will become closely affiliated with the tea party movement; on July 4, 2009, Rhodes will send speakers to administer his organization’s “oath” at over 30 tea party rallies across the nation. He will take part in the September 12, 2009 “9/12” march in Washington, DC (see September 12, 2009), and host rallies in Florida and other states. [Mother Jones, 3/2010]

Self-described “martial arts master, actor, and political activist” Chuck Norris adds his voice to the call by some right-wing leaders for armed insurrection against the Obama administration. Norris and others are calling for open rebellion, and for the military to refuse orders from their commander in chief. Norris claims that thousands of right-wing “cell groups” have organized and are ready to launch what he calls a “second American Revolution.” Days before, he jokingly told radio host Glenn Beck that he was ready to “run for president of Texas” after Texas secedes from the US (see March 3, 2009). In an article for the conservative Web publication WorldNetDaily, Norris makes the same claim in a far more serious tone: according to Norris, Texas was never formally a part of the US, and Texas will be the first of many states to secede from the union. The need for him to run for president of Texas “may be a reality sooner than we think,” he writes. “If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.” He justifies his call for another revolution—essentially overthrowing the federal government and replacing it with one more to his liking—by writing, “[W]e’ve bastardized the First Amendment, reinterpreted America’s religious history, and secularized our society until we ooze skepticism and circumvent religion on every level of public and private life.” He asks: “How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution? We the people have the authority according to America’s Declaration of Independence, which states: That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.” Norris has joined Beck’s nascent anti-government movement, “We Surround Them,” and writes, “Thousands of cell groups will be united around the country in solidarity over the concerns for our nation” when the group meets during a live telecast and series of “meetups” on March 13. Norris closes with the words of former Texas president Sam Houston, “We view ourselves on the eve of battle,” and finishes with a plug for his latest martial arts event in Houston, “Showdown in H-Town.” [Charlotte Examiner, 3/9/2009; WorldNetDaily, 3/9/2009] According to the website of “We Surround Them,” as of March 10, less than 30 sites have agreed to host meetings, a figure somewhat lower than the “thousands” Norris claims. The national unveiling of “We Surround Them” will take place on Fox News. [Charlotte Examiner, 3/10/2009]

The virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) begins actively targeting Jewish synagogues, Jewish community centers, Israeli consulates, and other Jewish organizations and individuals, in what the Anti-Defamation League will consider an orchestrated attempt to express anti-Semitic views. The WBC begins announcing planned protests at dozens of sites, as well as bombarding various Jewish institutions and individuals with anti-Semitic faxes and emails. [Anti-Defamation League, 2012] In an April 23 press release, the WBC declares its opposition to Jews, writing: “JEWS KILLED JESUS! Yes, the Jews killed the Lord Jesus.… Now they’re carrying water for the fags; that’s what they do best: sin in God’s face every day, with unprecedented and disproportionate amounts of sodomy, fornication, adultery, abortion and idolatry! God hates these dark-hearted rebellious disobedient Jews.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2012; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012]

Richard Poplawski. [Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]Pittsburgh resident Richard Poplawski kills three police officers after his mother calls 911 to have him removed from her home. According to a criminal complaint and affidavit, around 7 a.m. Margaret Poplawski and her son begin arguing over a dog urinating in the house; the argument escalates to the point where she calls the police to have him removed. When officers Stephen Mayhle and Paul Sciullo arrive, Mrs. Poplawski asks them inside. Unbeknownst to his mother, Poplawski has donned a bulletproof vest and taken up an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle, a .22 long rifle, and a pistol. From a position behind his mother, he shoots both officers in the head, killing them almost instantly. His mother hears the gunshots and flees to the basement, screaming, “What the hell have you done?” Poplawski shoots Mayhle again to ensure his death, then shoots a third officer, Eric Kelly, when he arrives to provide assistance. Kelly, critically wounded, manages to call for assistance; a fourth officer, Timothy McManaway, is shot in the hand as he arrives on the scene and attempts to help Kelly. Kelly will die at the hospital from multiple wounds to the torso and legs. Four-Hour Siege - Poplawski retreats to his bedroom and, as police assemble outside the home, fires at the officers. Police return fire, and between them, hundreds of shots are exchanged. During the siege, Poplawski calls a friend, Edward Perkovic, and tells him: “Eddie, I’m going to die today. Tell your family and friends I love them. This is probably the end.” The standoff between Poplawski and police lasts some four hours before officers finally persuade Poplawski to surrender; they enter the house and lead him out in handcuffs. Poplawski suffers at least one bullet wound during the exchange of gunfire. After the standoff, neighbors describe the scene as a “war zone.” Police have been called numerous times to the Poplawski residence to break up fights and disputes between mother and son. Deputy Chief Paul Donaldson will later say of the shootings: “I’d like to understand why. It’s senseless.” [Associated Press, 4/5/2009; New York Times, 4/5/2009; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/6/2009; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/8/2009] Poplawski is held without bail in the Alleghany County Jail, charged with the murder of three police officers, the shooting of a fourth, and eight counts of assault derived from his shooting at other officers. His grandmother, Catherine Scott, will tell a reporter that she is praying for her grandson, but: “My grandson did a terrible thing. There is no mercy for what he did.” [Associated Press, 4/5/2009; New York Times, 4/13/2009] Poplawski will later say he planned on forcing the police to kill him, but decided to surrender so he could write a book from inside prison. He will express no remorse for the men he kills. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/8/2009]White Supremacist, Anti-Semitic, Feared Gun Confiscation - The media will soon learn that Poplawski is a white supremacist who hates Jews and fears his guns will be taken away by the government (see April 4, 2009 and April 4, 2009 and After).

Within hours of Richard Poplawski’s murder of three Pittsburgh police officers (see April 4, 2009), the media learns that he is an avowed racist and white supremacist who has been preparing for a violent confrontation with authorities. Poplawski has contributed to racist Web sites, writing about his hatred of “race mixing,” the economic recession, Zionist conspiracies, and his fondness for his “AK” rifle. He also bears what one columnist will describe as a “Nazi-style tattoo,” and on Stormfront, a neo-Nazi Web site, described the tattoo as a “deliberately Americanized version of the [Nazi] iron eagle.” In a March 13 post on a racist site, he wrote: “One can read the list of significant persons in government and in major corporations and see who is pulling the strings. One can observe the policies and final products and should walk away with little doubt there is Zionist occupation and—after some further research [and] critical thinking—will discover their insidious intentions.” In the same month, Poplawski also posted that “the federal government, mainstream media, and banking system in these United States are strongly under the influence of—if not completely controlled by—Zionist interest. An economic collapse of the financial system is inevitable, bringing with it some degree of civil unrest if not outright balkanization of the continental US, civil/revolutionary/racial war.… This collapse is likely engineered by the elite Jewish powers that be in order to make for a power and asset grab.” His more recent posts, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), were escalating in their rhetorical violence, urging fellow white supremacists to achieve “ultimate victory for our people” by “taking back our nation.” He promised that he would be “ramping up the activism” soon. After the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl in February 2009, Poplawski dismissed NFL football as what he called “negroball,” then went out, conducted surveillance of how police tried to control crowds, and posted about his findings, saying that it was a prelude to the government rounding up citizens for imprisonment in concentration camps. Most of Poplawski’s postings were on Stormfront and Infowars, a conspiracy-minded Web site hosted by radio talk show host Alex Jones. The posts began, as far as can be ascertained, in 2007 and ended a few hours before the shootings. The ADL’s Mark Pitcavage says of Poplawski’s writings: “Cumulatively, what these postings reveal is a lot more about his mindset. They show a growing anti-government and anti-police hostility.” Other postings made by Poplawski show his intense, race-based dislike of President Obama and his intention to violently resist any government attempts to take away his guns. Pitcavage notes that in the last month, Poplawski changed his online moniker from “Rich P” to “Braced for Fate.” He says of the change, “I mean, this is talking about some inevitable confrontation, and possibly a fatal confrontation.” [New York Times, 4/7/2009; Anti-Defamation League, 4/8/2009; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 6/12/2009] Mrs. Poplawski tells police that her son, who was discharged from the Marine Corps for assaulting his drill sergeant during basic training, had been “stockpiling guns and ammunition, buying and selling the weapons online, because he believed that as a result of the economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/6/2009] Poplawski and his friend Edward Perkovic collaborated on an Internet broadcast where they showed video clips and talked politics [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/4/2009] , including a clip and subsequent discussion of a discussion on Fox News between host Glenn Beck and guest Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), which featured warnings about concentration camps run by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Perkovic, who shares many of Poplawski’s beliefs, will say of his friend: “He was really into politics and really into the First and Second Amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples’ right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill.” He adds: “We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty. One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/5/2009; Anti-Defamation League, 4/8/2009] On his MySpace page, Perkovic has written of his admiration for a novel called The Turner Diaries, which depicts the white supremacist takeover of the US and the extermination of minorities (see 1978), and the long-debunked “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a manifesto that purports to lay out the plans of “Zionists” to take over the world. [Crooks and Liars, 4/4/2009] Perkovic has posted about the “Zionist occupied government,” “mixed bloodlines that will erase national identity,” and Jewish control of the media. [Anti-Defamation League, 4/8/2009]

Many in the media speculate as to the motivations behind Richard Poplawski’s murder of three Pittsburgh police officers, which takes place on this day (see April 4, 2009). Findings that Poplawski is a white supremacist who hates Jews and fears that the federal government will confiscate his guns (see April 4, 2009) lead some to speculate that he was driven to violence by right-wing speculation and hate speech. In June 2009, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert will call Poplawski’s action a “right-wing, hate-driven attack,” and note that Poplawski and others like him have been inflamed by information provided by such organizations as the National Rifle Association (NRA), which consistently tells its Web site visitors that President Obama is planning to mount a nationwide gun confiscation. Herbert will also note that a friend of Poplawski’s told reporters that the shooter “feared the Obama gun ban that’s on the way.” [New York Times, 6/19/2009] In the days after Poplawski’s killing spree, Daily Beast columnist Max Blumenthal will speculate that Poplawski was driven to violence by the steady diet of right-wing hate speech and anti-government conspiracy theories he immersed himself in. Blumenthal notes that Alex Jones of Infowars, while himself not an advocate of white supremacy, is popular on the neo-Nazi Web site Stormfront.org for his incessant diatribes about the imminent takeover of the citizenry by FEMA and the Obama administratrion’s plans on confiscating guns as part of its plan to establish a leftist dictatorship. Blumenthal also notes Poplawski’s fondness for Fox News’s Glenn Beck, who often repeats and embellishes Jones’s conspiracy theories on his show, and his apparent self-affiliation with the radical fringes of the Tea Party movement. Author and reporter David Neiwert will tell Blumenthal: “It’s always been a problem when major-league demagogues start promulgating false information for political gain. What it does is unhinge fringe players from reality and dislodges them even further. When someone like Poplawski hears Glenn Beck touting One World Government and ‘they’re gonna take your gun’ theories, they believe then that it must be true. And that’s when they really become crazy.” [Daily Beast, 4/7/2009] Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an expert on political extremists, says of Poplawski’s views, “For some time now there has been a pretty good connection between being sucked into this conspiracy world and propagating violence.” She says Poplawski’s attack on the police is “a classic example of what happens when you start buying all this conspiracy stuff.” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/5/2009]

Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck attempts to disavow any connection between his rhetoric and accused murderer Richard Poplawski, who killed three police officers in Pittsburgh two days ago (see April 4, 2009). Poplawski said he was influenced by Beck and other conservative talk show hosts who have repeatedly warned that the government intends to forcibly confiscate citizens’ guns (see April 4, 2009). Beck tells his listeners, “[T]he press, the blogs, everybody immediately went to, ‘This guy’s a conservative with guns that says Obama’s coming.’” But later in his show, Beck repeats his assertions, telling viewers that President Obama “will slowly but surely take away your gun or take away your ability to shoot a gun, carry a gun. He will make them more expensive; he’ll tax them out of existence. He will because he has said he would. He will tax your gun or take your gun away one way or another.” [Media Matters, 4/9/2009]

One of Hayden’s Twitter posts. [Source: Twitteradar (.com)]Daniel Knight Hayden, an Oklahoma man who has declared himself affiliated with local tea party organizations and the “Oath Keeper” movement (see March 9, 2009 and March 2010), is arrested by FBI agents after posting a series of messages on Twitter threatening to unleash a violent attack on Oklahoma state government officials on April 15, “Tax Day.” On April 13, under the moniker “CitizenQuasar,” Hayden began posting a blizzard of “tweets” about his intention to be on the Oklahoma State Capitol steps on the 15th, at first as part of a peaceful tea party event, then escalating into harsher rhetoric, and eventually threats of violence. On April 14, he wrote: “Tea Parties: And Poot Gingrich wants to stand in the limelight. He is a NWO operative,” referring to former Republican House Speaker and tea party favorite Newt Gingrich, and accusing him of being an “operative” for the “New World Order” (see September 11, 1990). Towards midnight of April 14, Hayden begins the following series of posts: “Maybe it’s time to die. Let’s see if I can video record the Highway Patrol at the entrance to the Oklahoma State Capitol.” “While trying to inform them of Oath Keepers” (and links to the Oath Keepers blog). “And post it on the internet. Since i live on this sorry f_cking state,that is as good a place as ANY to die and start a WAR. WEshallsee.” “I WISH I had someone to watch my back with MY camera.” “AND, no matter WHAT happens, to post it on the internet IMMEDIATELY, AND send it to Alex Jones!!!!!!!!!!!!” (referring to radio talk show host Alex Jones). “Damnit!” “Alas… WE SHALL see the TRUTH about this sorry f_cking state!!!!!!!” After a few more posts, Dyer begins posting direct threats of violence (later removed from the Twitter account, but presented in the FBI affidavit). “The WAR wWIL start on the stepes of the Oklahoma State Capitol. I will cast the first stone. In the meantime, I await the police.” “START THE KILLING NOW! I am wiling to be the FIRST DEATH! I Await the police. They will kill me in my home.” “After I am killed on the Capitol Steps like REAL man, the rest of you will REMEMBER ME!!!” “I really don’ give a sh_t anymore. Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads and throw the on the State Capitol steps.” Hayden is taken into custody before he can go to the Capitol building, and arrested for transmitting threats to kill or injure people using interstate communication tools over the Internet. FBI agent Michael Puskas confirms that Dyer posted under the moniker “CitizenQuasar,” and says Dyer also has MySpace and Blogger accounts under similar monikers. Wired magazine says it “appears to be [the] first criminal prosecution to stem from posts on the microblogging site,” and calls Dyer’s MySpace page “a breathtaking gallery of right-wing memes about the ‘New World Order,’ gun control as Nazi fascism, and Barack Obama’s covert use of television hypnosis, among many others.” Dyer will be arraigned on April 16 and ordered released to a halfway house, a move the Associated Press reports as suggesting “the magistrate judge does not consider him a genuine threat.” [Wired News, 4/24/2009; Associated Press, 4/26/2009] Posters on the conservative blog Free Republic, commenting on Hayden’s arrest, label him a “leftist” who intended to kill tea party protesters, a contention they say is proven by Hayden’s vows to seek revenge for the government’s execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). One poster writes: “Hayden appears to be one of those mixtures of far out ideologies. On one hand he seems to support nazism but accused Obama of using mind control.” [Free Republic, 4/24/2009]

From left to right: Brandon Piekarsky, Colin Walsh, and Derrick Donchak. [Source: Moral Low Ground (.com)]Two Pennsylvania teenagers who beat an illegal immigrant to death (see July 12, 2008 and After) are found not guilty of the major crimes they were alleged to have committed. The all-white jury in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, finds Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak guilty of simple assault against Luis Ramirez. Piekarsky is found innocent of third-degree murder; both are found innocent of ethnic intimidation. Friends and relatives of the two teenagers have to be restrained by court officers when they attempt to rush the defense table to congratulate the two defendants. Gladys Limon, a lawyer for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, calls the jury’s verdicts “a complete failure of justice.” She adds, “It’s just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt.” Piekarsky and Donchak may face federal charges over the murder of Ramirez. Prosecutors said they were two of a group of four drunken teenagers who targeted Ramirez because of his race, and beat him to death while screaming racial epithets. Piekarsky delivered the fatal blow, a kick to the head. Ramirez died of the injury two days later. Defense lawyers called Ramirez the aggressor, and called the incident a street brawl that ended badly. Jury foreman Eric Macklin says the evidence led them to acquit Piekarsky and Donchak of all but the most minor charges. “I feel bad for Luis’s friends and family,” Macklin says. “I know they feel they haven’t gotten justice.” Neither Piekarsky nor Donchak will serve more than two years in prison. Another assailant, Colin Walsh, who actually knocked Ramirez unconscious before Piekarsky began stomping him, pled guilty to a charge of violating Ramirez’s civil rights, earning four years in prison; Walsh testified for the prosecution. A fourth assailant, Brian Scully, is charged in juvenile court with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation (see May 18, 2009). [CNN, 5/2/2009; Associated Press, 5/4/2009; Philadelphia Weekly, 5/19/2009]Hispanic Residents Say Verdict Encourages More Racial Intimidation - Shenandoah residents say after the verdict that other white teenagers apparently feel empowered by the verdict, and have issued threats against other Hispanic residents. One, high school student Felix Bermejo, is told by a group of white males that he will be the next one to be beaten to death. Residents who have spoken out against the murder are harassed and threatened. One white resident, who asks that her name not be used for fear of retaliation, tells a reporter: “It’s only gotten worse since the verdict. The whole thing has set us backwards, and if the trial had swung the other way, it would have just been the whites who were angry.” Some white residents say that the only racial tensions in Shenandoah are those sparked by the national media coverage, but some Hispanic residents say differently. Fermin Bermejo, the father of the threatened Felix Bermejo, tells a reporter, “This town is a place where people can be very kind, but there are also a lot of folks who don’t like change and they don’t like people who are different, and they make sure you know it.” The Bermejos are American citizens. Fermin Bermejo says he has tried repeatedly to get school authorities to intervene in what he calls the bullying of his son; instead, his son has been suspended for standing up to the white youths. “All we were asking the principal to do is talk to the bullies and tell them that if the accusations were true, they would be in serious trouble,” Bermejo says. Other Hispanic residents tell of being targeted by ethnic slurs and criticized for speaking Spanish in public. One Hispanic shopkeeper says his store’s front window was shattered by vandals after the verdict. [New York Times, 5/16/2009]Federal Investigation Mounted - After the verdict, Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA) calls the verdict racially motivated, and calls for a Justice Department investigation. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Rendell writes: “The evidence suggests that Mr. Ramirez was targeted, beaten, and killed because he was Mexican. Such lawlessness and violence hurts not only the victim of the attack, but also our towns and communities that are torn apart by such bigotry and intolerance.” After an FBI investigation, federal charges will be filed against Piekarsky, Donchak, and three local police officers (see December 15, 2009). [CNN, 12/15/2009]

Brian Scully, a Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, teenager charged with taking part in the fatal beating of illegal immigrant Luis Ramirez (see July 12, 2008 and After), admits to taking part in the fight that resulted in him and a number of his friends kicking and stomping the unconscious Ramirez to death. Scully, charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation, is classified as a “delinquent” and ordered to spend 90 days in a treatment center. The three teenagers charged as adults in the murder were recently acquitted of all but the lightest charges in the murder (see May 2, 2009 and After). Scully says he is sorry for his actions. [Associated Press, 5/18/2009]

Fellow anti-abortionists say that Scott Roeder, arrested in connection with the murder of late-term-abortion-providing OB/GYN Dr. George Tiller (see May 31, 2009), has long been a hard-line opponent of abortion. Kansas anti-abortion activist Regina Dinwittie, who was ordered by a judge to cease using a bullhorn within 500 feet of an abortion clinic in 1995, says: “I know that he believed in justifiable homicide. He very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn.” Dinwittie recounts Roeder confronting Dr. Robert Crist, who worked at the Kansas City Planned Parenthood clinic in 1996: “He stared at him for approximately 45 seconds. Then he [Roeder] said, ‘I’ve seen you now.’ Then he turned his back and walked away, and they were scared to death.” [Kansas City Star, 5/31/2009] Dinwittie says she herself is “glad” of Tiller’s death, saying, “I wouldn’t cry for him no more than I would if somebody dropped a rat and killed it.” [Associated Press, 6/1/2009] After attending Tiller’s trial, Roeder told fellow Kansas anti-abortion activist Eugene Frye that the whole process was “a sham.” Frye says, “He felt justice had not been served.” [Kansas City Star, 6/2/2009] “In this situation, Scott viewed Tiller as the violent person,” Frye said. “Scott didn’t see himself as that. He saw this man as perpetrating murder on these innocent babies.… Scott had that conviction.” [Kansas City Star, 6/5/2009] Dave Leach, publisher of the Iowa magazine Prayer and Action News, which has said “justifiable homicide” against abortion providers can be supported, and to which Roeder subscribed, says: “Scott is not my hero in that sense; he has not inspired me to shoot an abortionist. But definitely, he will be the hero to thousands of babies who will not be slain because Scott sacrificed everything for them.” [Associated Press, 6/1/2009] In signing a petition against Tiller in September 2007, someone giving the name Scott Roeder wrote, “Tiller is the concentration camp ‘Mengele’ of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation.” [Scott Roeder, 9/3/2009] In 1996, Roeder, then a member of the anti-government militia group known as the Freemen, was arrested on charges of possessing explosives (see April 16, 1996).

Author and pro-choice advocate Cristina Page writes that the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller (see May 31, 2009) is anything but an isolated incident, and warns that more anti-abortion violence may well be forthcoming. “The pattern is clear and frightening,” she writes. Page notes that the tenure of President Clinton, who supported abortion rights, was marred by a large and ever-escalating number of violent protests and attacks on abortion providers, beginning with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993 (see March 10, 1993); Gunn’s murder, Page writes, “was the beginning of what would become a five-fold increase in violence against abortion providers throughout the Clinton years.” During Clinton’s two terms, six abortion providers and clinical staff members were murdered, and 17 other attempted murders took place. There were 12 bombings or arsons during Clinton’s tenure. From 2001 through 2008, no abortion-related murders, nor attempted murders, occurred, while George W. Bush, an anti-abortion president, was in office. A single clinic bombing took place during Bush’s two terms. Since the election of President Obama, another pro-choice president, a steady escalation of anti-abortion violence has occurred (see February-May, 2009), culminating in the murder of Tiller. Page notes that in the eight years of the Bush administration, abortion and women’s health clinics registered 396 harassing phone calls. In the five months of the Obama administration, that number is at 1401 and rising. Page writes: “Battered women are at greatest danger of being killed by their abusers when they are most strong—that is, when they muster the courage to leave. The same phenomenon may be true in the abusive political abortion debate. The pro-choice movement, specifically our abortion providers, are in the greatest danger of violence when we take power. When the anti-abortion movement loses power, their most extreme elements appear to move to the fore and take control. The murder of Dr. Tiller suggests that violence against abortion providers may be far more linked to the power, or lack thereof, anti-abortion groups have politically than to laws designed to increase penalties against such acts.” She notes the violent rhetoric of numerous anti-abortion organization leaders since Obama’s election, many targeting Obama himself, with one official calling Obama a “radical pro-abortion president” and another saying that Obama will “force Americans to pay for the killing of innocents.” Elizabeth Barnes, executive director of the Philadelphia Women’s Center, says: “When the pendulum swung in the direction of protecting women’s rights, we expected something. The way the antis are reacting has changed, they’re taking more liberties, pressing the boundaries of legal, civil protest.” Page concludes: “Anti-abortion groups will put out carefully worded press statements condemning the murder of Dr. Tiller, as became routine for them during the Clinton years. But unless the rhetoric they choose from now on becomes careful too—they may be the enablers of murder and terror.” [Huffington Post, 5/31/2009]

A screenshot of Bill O’Reilly, taken during one of his segments featuring his criticism of Dr. George Tiller. [Source: Drive-By Times]Progressive author and blogger David Neiwert compiles three years of video evidence that he says proves Fox News host Bill O’Reilly helped target murdered abortion provider Dr. George Tiller (see May 31, 2009). Since 2006, Neiwert writes, O’Reilly has targeted the man he called “Tiller the Killer” in recurrent episodes of his Fox television show, The O’Reilly Factor, and on his radio show, accusing Tiller of “executing babies” and recommending that “something” be done to stop Tiller from continuing his practice. In November 2006, O’Reilly told his audience: “If we as a society allow an undefined mental health exception in late-term abortions, then babies can be killed for almost any reason.… This is the kind of stuff that happened in Mao’s China and Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union.… If we allow this, America will no longer be a noble nation.… If we allow Dr. George Tiller and his acolytes to continue, we can no longer pass judgment on any behavior by anybody. What Tiller is doing is that bad.” In the same broadcast, he said: “I don’t care what you think. We have incontrovertible evidence that this man is executing babies about to be born because the woman is depressed… if you don’t believe me, I don’t care.… You are okay with Dr. Tiller executing babies about to be born because the mother says she’s depressed.” O’Reilly claimed that Tiller was a criminal and told his audience, “George Tiller will execute babies for $5,000 if the mother is depressed.” O’Reilly has urged “massive” protests at Tiller’s clinic, once in January 2006, when he said, “There should be thousands of people protesting outside Tiller’s abortion clinic in Wichita.” According to Neiwert, the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue (see 1986), which regularly prints O’Reilly’s articles in its newsletter, answered O’Reilly’s call, and O’Reilly used information from Operation Rescue to further lambast Tiller on his shows. In May 2007, O’Reilly described Tiller with the following diatribe: “killer, murder, murderer, barbarian, barbaric procedure, disgrace.” Neiwert writes that O’Reilly is not legally culpable for Tiller’s murder, but he is “morally and ethically culpable.” [Crooks and Liars, 6/1/2009; Salon, 6/1/2009]

Phoning the Associated Press from his jail cell, Scott Roeder, the suspect in the murder of late-term abortion provider George Tiller (see May 31, 2009), says, “I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal.” He refuses to elaborate. A Justice Department spokesperson says the threat is being taken seriously, but Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue, dismisses it, saying, “This guy is a lunatic.” [Associated Press, 6/7/2009] In response, Judge Warren Wilbert raises Roeder’s bond amount from $5 million to $20 million, citing concerns that Roeder could “perpetuate, participate or enact any more violence on his own or in concert with others.” The judge explains that his decision is influenced in part by police having discovered weapons and explosives in his possession in 1996, which he said he planned to use on an abortion clinic (see April 16, 1996). [Associated Press, 6/14/2009]

James von Brunn. [Source: UPI / TPM Muckraker]James von Brunn, an 88-year-old man with a long history of violence and anti-Semitism, opens fire inside Washington’s Holocaust Museum. Von Brunn kills a security guard, Stephen T. Johns, before being brought down by fire from other security guards. Von Brunn is hospitalized in critical condition. Von Brunn brought a .22 rifle into the museum and began shooting almost immediately upon entering the building. [WJLA-TV, 6/10/2009; New York Daily News, 6/11/2009] The New York Daily News identifies von Brunn as a “neo-Nazi.” [New York Daily News, 6/11/2009]Targeting Jewish White House Official - Von Brunn has a list of nine locations in his car, including the White House, the US Capitol, and media outlets such as Fox News and the Washington Post. [WJLA-TV, 6/10/2009] A note in a notebook found in the car reads: “You want my weapons, this is how you’ll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do.” In September 2010, the press will learn that von Brunn intended to kill President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod, a Jew. Von Brunn did not believe he could get to Obama, authorities will later confirm, but he had the “motive, means, and intent” to kill Axelrod, one of Obama’s closest aides. Axelrod will be given special Secret Service protection. [Guardian, 6/11/2009; Time, 9/30/2010; TPM Muckraker, 9/30/2010]Shock, Sadness Mark Reactions - Within hours, President Obama and a number of political and cultural organizations will express their shock and sorrow over the shooting (see June 10-11, 2009). Long History of Violence, White Supremacist Ties, and Anti-Semitism - Von Brunn maintains a Web site, “holywesternempire.org,” described by reporters as “racist [and] anti-Semitic,” and is the author of a book, Kill the Best Gentiles, which alleges a Jewish “conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool.” Von Brunn served six years in prison for a 1981 attempt to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board. (On his Web site, he complained of being convicted by a “Jew/Negro” conspiracy of lawyers and judicial officials.) His Web site alleges that the Holocaust is a hoax, and calls Nazi Germany the “cultural gem of the West.” The FBI is investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime or a case of domestic terrorism. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists von Brunn’s Web site as a hate site. [WJLA-TV, 6/10/2009; NBC New York, 6/11/2009; USA Today, 6/11/2009] “We’ve been tracking this guy for decades,” says SPLC official Heidi Beirich. “He thinks the Jews control the Federal Reserve, the banking system, that basically all Jews are evil.” [Associated Press, 6/10/2009] Von Brunn’s son, Erik von Brunn, says his father’s virulent racism and anti-Semitism has blighted their family for years. In a statement, he writes: “For the extremists who believe my father is a hero: it is imperative you understand what he did was an act of cowardice. His actions have undermined your ‘movement,’ and strengthened the resistance against your cause. He should not be remembered as a brave man or a hero, but a coward unable to come to grips with the fact he threw his and his families lives away for an ideology that fostered sadness and anguish.” [Washington Post, 6/14/2009] Further investigation turns up evidence that Von Brunn has connections to white supremacist organizations and anti-government groups. In 2004, von Brunn stayed for four days in Hayden, Idaho, with Stan Hess, then the representative for white supremacist David Duke’s European rights group. Hess recalls von Brunn as being “very angry about society and the Jewish influence at the Federal Reserve.” Von Brunn, Hess says, alluded to violence but never spoke specifically about a target. [NBC New York, 6/11/2009; USA Today, 6/11/2009] FBI investigators find a painting of Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ standing together in von Brunn’s home. They also find more firearms, and child pornography on his computer. [MyFoxDC, 6/17/2009; Washington Post, 6/19/2009] Von Brunn also has ties to the far-right, white supremacist British National Party, and had attended meetings of the American Friends of the British National Party. [Guardian, 6/11/2009]Eradicating Evidence of Support - Within hours of the murder, Web sites featuring von Brunn’s work begin removing his material from their pages; some of those sites are operated by organizations whose members had praised and supported von Brunn’s white supremacist and anti-Obama statements (see June 10-11, 2009). Connections to Anti-Obama 'Birther' Movement - Von Brunn has also written about his belief that Obama is at the heart of a conspiracy to cover up his Kenyan citizenship (see October 8-10, 2008). Reporter Ben Smith writes, “The penetration of the birther mythology into the violent fringe has to be a worry for the Secret Service, because at it’s heart, it’s about denying Obama’s legitimacy to hold the office of president.” [Politico, 6/10/2009; USA Today, 6/11/2009]Indicted for Murder, Dies before Trial - Von Brunn will be indicted for first-degree murder in the death of Johns. [Washington Post, 7/29/2009] However, he will die in prison before his trial can commence. [BBC, 1/6/2010]

Representative Tim Bishop (D-NY) holds a “town hall” meeting in Setauket, New York, to attempt to discuss the White House’s health care reform package. However, the town hall is disrupted by a large number of angrily shouting conservatives, there to protest the reform proposals. The protesters hound Bishop throughout the meeting, shouting him down when he attempts to speak, and accusing him of “selling out” the country through his positions on the White House’s energy, economic, and health care policies. The mob becomes so threatening that five police officers are forced to escort Bishop to his car for his own safety. In part because of the incident, Bishop will suspend further town hall meetings until August 2009. Bishop has held over 100 such meetings since his election to Congress in 2002. [Politico, 7/31/2009; MSNBC, 8/4/2009]

Federal authorities launch raids and arrests in three states based on four years of evidence compiled by a confidential informant who has managed to get close to white supremacists Dennis and Daniel Mahon (see January 26, 2005 and After). The Mahons’ home in Illinois is searched, as is a Missouri farm owned by survivalist Robert Joos and an Indiana home owned by supremacist leader Tom Metzger (see 1981 and After). The Mahons are arrested on suspicion of bombing a Scottsdale federal office (see February 26, 2004 and After), and Joos on weapons charges. Metzger is not arrested. Joos is later convicted and sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison. The Mahons will go on trial in 2012 (see January 10, 2012 and After). Metzger later says that he was released because he was innocent of any crime, and that he doubts the Mahon brothers are guilty of anything, either: “I have a hard time believing that they did it. I’ve always cautioned them against going across the line.” [TPM Muckraker, 1/10/2012]

Paul Topete of Poker Face. [Source: AmericanFreePress (.net)]A thousand people attend a “tea party” rally in Washington, DC. Speakers include members from a number of anti-tax “reform” groups, the lobbying organization and tea party sponsor FreedomWorks (see April 8, 2009 and April 14, 2009), and a number of radio talk show hosts. A rock band, Poker Face, provides entertainment and technical support. Poker Face’s lead singer, Paul Topete, has publicly called the Holocaust a “hoax” and has written for Holocaust-denial publications. Poker Face was refused permission to play at a Rutgers University event in 2006 and a Ron Paul (R-TX) campaign event in 2007 because of the band’s open bigotry and anti-Semitism. However, as the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights’s Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind will later note, “they made it to the stage of the tea party without any questions asked.” [Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 10/19/2010]

Frank Kratovil hung in effigy by a conservative protester. [Source: Joe Albero / Salisbury News]An angry conservative protester hangs Representative Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy in front of his office. Other conservative protesters rally around the effigy, waving signs and chanting anti-health care reform slogans. Conservative lobbying organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see April 15, 2009 and May 29, 2009) quickly distances itself from the incident, saying that it had nothing to do with the protest and disapproved of the tactic. AFP is helping organize raucous, disruptive anti-health care protests around the country. The next day, AFP spokeswoman Amy Menefee will write: “We held an event the previous night, where this man passed out flyers asking people to join him the next day at the office for a protest. That is how some AFP members ended up coming, but they were disgusted by his behavior. I repeat, this gathering WAS NOT an AFP event or sponsored by us in any way.” Conservative blogger Joe Albero, who took the picture featured in many news articles, calls the effigy “despicable” and accuses Democrats of “turn[ing] it around to be something it wasn’t.” [Washington Post, 7/28/2009] The liberal news and advocacy site Think Progress later identifies the protesters as members of Patients First, a subsidiary of AFP. [Think Progress, 7/28/2009] Reporter Glenn Thrush opines, “If this is the face of anti-health care reform protest, the GOP has a serious problem.” He also confirms that although AFP claims not to have sanctioned the protest, AFP members were in attendance. [Politico, 7/28/2009] Think Progress notes that Menefee, before joining AFP in the beginning of 2009, worked for the Galen Institute, a conservative think tank funded by medical-device and pharmaceutical corporations. [Think Progress, 7/31/2009] One of Kratovil’s colleagues, Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), calls the hanging a “shocking and despicable act of hate,” and says “Republicans must condemn it.” [Think Progress, 7/29/2009] The Democratic National Committee will use the photograph of Kratovil being hung in effigy in ads claiming that the “anti-reform mobs” are being “organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform.” [Baltimore Sun, 8/6/2009]

Anti-reform protesters carry signs depicting Doggett with ‘devil horns’ and a sign featuring Nazi SS lettering. [Source: Raw Story]Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) receives a hostile reception in a town hall meeting in an Austin grocery store. The meeting is to discuss the controversial Democratic health care reform proposal. The crowd is much larger than some had anticipated, and apparently packed with anti-health care reform protesters; anti-reform and anti-Obama signs are prominently displayed, including signs that read, “No Socialized Health Care.” Protesters also wave signs with Doggett depicted with devil horns, of a marble tombstone with Doggett’s name on it, and with slogans alleging Democrats are Nazis. When Doggett tells the crowd that he will support the reform plan even if his constituents oppose it, many in the crowd begin chanting “Just say no!” and, according to news reports, “overwhelm… the congressman as he move[s] through the crowd and into the parking lot.” One resident says of the meeting: “The folks there thought their voices weren’t being heard. They were angry, but they were respectful. There wasn’t any violence.” Another says, laughing: “He jumped in [his car] and fled. It was like he was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. It was a beautiful thing.” Doggett later notes that because of the disruption, he is unable to engage in discussion with constituents who have other issues, including a father who wants his help in getting his son into a military academy. [Austin American-Statesman, 8/3/2009; New York Times, 8/3/2009; Atlantic Monthly, 8/4/2009]Congressman: Protesters a 'Mob' - Doggett will later characterize the anti-reform protesters as a “mob.” In a statement, he says: “This mob, sent by the local Republican and Libertarian parties, did not come just to be heard, but to deny others the right to be heard. And this appears to be part of a coordinated, nationwide effort. What could be more appropriate for the ‘party of no’ than having its stalwarts drowning out the voices of their neighbors by screaming ‘just say no!‘… Their fanatical insistence on repealing Social Security and Medicare is not just about halting health care reform but rolling back 75 years of progress. I am more committed than ever to win approval of legislation to offer more individual choice to access affordable health care. An effective public plan is essential to achieve that goal.” [Politico, 8/3/2009; CBS News, 8/3/2009]Coordinated by Local Republicans, Washington Lobbyist Firm, 'Tea Party' Group - The protest is coordinated by Heather Liggett, a local Republican Party operative, and by officials with the lobbying firm Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which has organized numerous anti-tax “tea party” demonstrations (see April 15, 2009 and May 29, 2009). Liggett confirms she is part of a national network of conservative organizers putting together anti-reform protests. Doggett says: “This is not a grassroots effort. This is a very coordinated effort where the local Republican Party, the local conservative meet-up groups sent people to my event.” Of the event itself, he says: “In Texas, not only with the weather but with the politics, it is pretty hardball around here. I have a pretty thick skin about all of this. But this really goes over the line.” And Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), adds: “Conservative activists don’t want to have a conversation. They want to disrupt.” [New York Times, 8/3/2009] Democratic National Committee (DNC) spokesman Brad Woodhouse says, “The right-wing extremists’ use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the president’s citizenship, and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are.” Another group with connections to the “tea party” movement, “Operation Embarrass Your Congressman,” helped organize the protest. It says on its Web site: “These arrogant, ignorant, and insolent [Congress members] have embarrassed America, trampled the Constitution, and ignored their constituents for far too long. Attend their townhall meetings during recess and press them with intelligent questions (unlike the mainstream media), asked in an intelligent manner to see if they are really in touch and on board with ‘the will of the people.’” [CBS News, 8/3/2009] After the meeting, FreedomWorks, a conservative lobbying organization that actively promotes disruptive behavior at Congressional town halls (see April 14, 2009), posts video from the meeting, and exhorts its members, “If you know of a town hall meeting your Congressman is having, be sure to show up, bring some friends, and them know what you think.” [FreedomWorks, 8/3/2009]

Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) says that a House member has been physically assaulted during a town hall meeting by anti-health care protesters (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, and August 4, 2009). He refuses to identify the representative in question. Instead, he warns that the increasingly riotous confrontations at town hall meetings by conservative protesters are rising to “a dangerous level.” He blames misinformation disseminated by conservative lobbying organizations who are helping orchestrate the town hall disruptions (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, and Before August 6, 2009) and on Fox News (see August 3, 2009 and August 3, 2009). “When you look at the fervor of some of these people who are all being whipped up by the right-wing talking heads on Fox, to me, you’re crossing a line,” he says. “They’re inciting people to riot with just total distortions of facts. They think we’re going to euthanize Grandma and the government is going to take over.” Another Democratic staffer says flatly, “These people are crazy.” Connolly notes that many of the more elderly protesters receive Medicare, but are seemingly unaware that Medicare is a government program. Steve Driehaus (D-OH), who recently held a contentious health care discussion (see August 3, 2009), says: “We’re not going to say we’re no longer going to listen to constituents because of a few angry protesters. We have no intentions of changing our plan based on any extracurricular nonsense.” Grover Norquist, president of the conservative advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, says the protests are nothing more than spontaneous outbursts of real public anger. He also says his organization encourages its members to attend town halls, and gives them talking points, suggested questions to ask, and slogans to chant (see August 5, 2009). “People are pissed,” he says. “They’ve been lied to.” [Roll Call, 8/5/2009]

Democratic Representative Brad Miller (D-NC) says that his office has received a very credible and disturbing death threat over his support for the Obama administration’s health care reform proposals. Miller, unlike many of his colleagues, has not scheduled any “town hall” events to discuss health care reform with his constituents (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, and August 5, 2009). “We have received a threatening phone call in the DC office, there have been calls to the Raleigh office,” says Miller’s communications director, LuAnn Canipe. “The call to the DC office was, ‘Miller could lose his life over this,’” she says. “Our staffer took it so seriously, he confirmed what the guy was saying. He said, ‘Sir is that a threat?’ and at that time our staffer was getting the phone number off caller ID and turning it over to the Capitol Police.” Canipe says the police have not yet reported back to them what, if anything, they have found. She says Miller was not planning on holding any town hall meetings anyway, and would not schedule any now: “Our point is, we’re not gonna be bullied into having a town hall so it can then be interrupted by the fake grassroots folks.… We don’t want to people to think we’re shutting out our constituents. We’re meeting with them one on one to discuss health care reform.” [TPMDC, 8/5/2009; MSNBC, 8/13/2009] Afterwards, Miller expounds on his reasoning for not desiring to hold town hall meetings during the remainder of the summer recess: there is, he says, “a lynch-mob mentality out there. There is an ugliness to it.” [MSNBC, 8/7/2009]

Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) hosts a “town hall” meeting to discuss the Democrats’ health care reform proposal in Douglas, Arizona. As with so many other town halls of this nature, Giffords’s is repeatedly disrupted by shouting, screaming, and chanting audience members protesting the reform package (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, and August 3, 2009). Unlike the others, this event takes on a more sinister overtone when a pistol is found on the floor of the grocery store after the event. Giffords’s aides report the dropped pistol to local police. Giffords says she will not be intimidated by either guns or rhetoric. “Yelling and screaming is counterproductive,” she says. Trent Humphries, the leader of the local anti-reform movement in nearby Tucson, accuses Giffords of lying about the gun, and says none of his fellow protesters would hurt her. “Nobody is threatening Gabby,” he says. “But she does need to get in front of her constituents and answer to her constituents.” Giffords is a member of the so-called “Blue Dog” caucus of conservative Democrats who are balking at supporting the health care reform package in its current form. [Arizona Daily Star, 8/10/2009] Police investigating the incident will decide not to press charges. Officer Marcus Gonzalez will tell the press: “Apparently, there was no police report taken, the reason being that it was an accidental drop of a gun. Apparently, a male gentleman that went to the meeting had a gun holstered on his side. And when he sat down, it fell out of his holster.” The “male gentleman” owns the gun and was legally carrying it pursuant to Arizona’s “open-carry” law. “We’re not really conducting an investigation on this, because there’s not really an investigation to conduct,” Gonzalez says. [TPMDC, 8/11/2009] A conservative blogger will post a video from the event, and call it “tightly scripted.” [Gila Courier, 8/6/2009]

Representative Brian Baird (D-WA) tells MSNBC host Rachel Maddow that there is a real danger of violence being fomented by anti-health care protesters (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6-8, 2009). “[T]he first violence that’s happening is violence in the democratic process,” he says. “If people set out to disrupt town hall meetings, to intimidate people who sincerely want to discuss important issue, the first victim is the democracy itself. But beyond that, some of the rhetoric that we’re hearing is vaguely—not vaguely, but eerily reminiscent of the thing that drove Tim McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995).… [W]hen a concerted effort is made to intimidate, to suppress discussion, to threaten people, that crosses the line and it actually blocks the democratic process and informed debate.” Says Constituents Intimidated, Unwilling to Participate - Baird acknowledges that he has not held any in-person town hall meetings, though he has scheduled so-called “telephone town halls” conducted via telephone and Internet connections. “What I’m opting not do is create a venue where people can purposefully intimidate other members of the community who want to be heard and want to express their views,” he says. “You know, when you read these Web sites, Rachel, it’s all about attack early, intimidate, shout them down, don’t get them have a word in edgewise. I’ve had town halls where that kind of thing has happened and average citizens have said: ‘This is frightening to me. This is not what my country is about. I’m not coming to these anymore.’ So, if you get a point where the only purpose to have a town hall is to have it disrupted and reasonable people who want to have a debate can’t be there, what’s the point of having the town hall?” GOP Must Call for Restraint - Baird says that the Republican Party has a direct responsibility to “call for civility, because this is a question of our democratic process itself. Remember, they will have town halls as well. And we don’t really want a situation where our side decides, well, we’ve got to show up and scream and shout them down—because then you basically resort to mob rule. And that’s not what a constitutional democratic republic is about. It’s not enough for them to say, ‘We’re not coordinating it, we’re not condoning it.’ They must do as John McCain did (see August 5, 2009), and vigorously—vigorously oppose this.” [MSNBC, 8/7/2009]'Death to All Marxists' - The next day, Baird receives a fax at his office. The fax depicts President Obama with a Communist hammer and sickle drawn on his forehead, and the message “Death to all Marxists, foreign and domestic” written underneath. [MSNBC, 8/13/2009]

Protesters bang on the windows of the Children’s Board, demanding to be heard. [Source: WTSP]The raucous and near-riotous behavior of recent town hall and forum meetings about health care reform (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6, 2009) reaches new heights in Ybor City, Florida, just outside Tampa, as a large and disorderly group of anti-reform protesters disrupt a town hall meeting held by Betty Reed (D-FL) and featuring Kathy Castor (D-FL). [Think Progress, 8/6/2009; MyFoxTampaBay, 8/6/2009] The forum, apparently intended to be something of a pep rally for the Obama administration’s health care proposals, was organized by Reed, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and a pro-reform group, Organizing for America. But hundreds of protesters also appear, many affirming that they came at the urging of the Tampa 9/12 conservative activist group, an organization promoted by Fox News host Glenn Beck. Others say they received e-mails from the Hillsborough County Republican Party urging them to speak out against the plan and offering talking points. [St. Petersburg Times, 8/7/2009; Tampa Tribune, 8/7/2009]Huge Turnout Exacerbates Tensions - Well over 1,000 people appear for the meeting, held at the Children’s Board, a venue that holds a maximum of 250. Local news reporters note that “[t]ensions were high among people who couldn’t get in.” Protesters accuse the forum organizers of barring people who oppose health care reform, but many of the people left outside are reform supporters. The meeting is marred by screams and shouts both outside the venue and in, as well as people banging on windows to be let in. [Think Progress, 8/6/2009; MyFoxTampaBay, 8/6/2009; Fox News, 8/7/2009] Both Reed and Castor are shouted down almost from the moment they begin speaking, and battle spates of shouting, chanting, and a variety of accusations throughout the evening. Castor leaves relatively early, apparently frustrated at being shouted down when she tries to speak; when Castor leaves, she requires an escort to avoid being accosted. [WTSP, 8/7/2009] One of the popular chants is an apparently orchestrated repetition of “Tyranny! Tyranny! Tyranny!” Other chants include: “Tell the truth! Tell the truth!” “Read the bill!” and “Forty million illegals! Forty million illegals!” One reporter will write, “The spectacle… sounded more like a wrestling cage match than a panel discussion on national policy.” [St. Petersburg Times, 8/7/2009]Verbal, Physical Violence - Outside the hall, a fistfight occurs, with Orlando cameraman Mark Bishop being roughed up. “That’s the most violent anyone has been towards me,” he says. A protester, Randy Arthur, attempts to force his way into the hall, and is instead slammed into a wall by, he claims, union members acting as door guards. (Susan Smith, a member of the Hillsborough County Democratic Party, later says that members of the Young Democrats, not union members, were on the doors.) A photo of him displaying his torn shirt and scratches later makes the rounds of anti-reform Web sites. Arthur says he intends to file charges, though the Tampa police have no such plans, and says he intends to become more involved in Republican and conservative politics as a result of the forum. Inside the hall, Kathy Miracle, who supports reform, is “inadvertently” spat upon by a shouting anti-reform protester, Barry Osteen, sitting beside her, she will later say. She shoves Osteen’s face away, and is photographed doing so, in what some people construe as a slap. Osteen will say: “She didn’t slap me. I almost didn’t even know she was there.” Miracle later says she doesn’t “appreciate being spread all over the Internet.” Supporters and opponents of reform engage in a number of verbal altercations in the parking lot. No arrests are made, even though many ignore police orders, issued through bullhorns, to disperse. Later, a Tampa police spokesman says, “We walk a fine line between freedom of speech and public safety.” [WTSP, 8/7/2009; Tampa Tribune, 8/7/2009; Susan Smith, 8/7/2009; Tampa Tribune, 8/13/2009]Cameraman Jostled - A protester with a camera, J. Mark Campbell, has his camera knocked out of his hand and his glasses broken during an attempt by protesters to force their way into the hall, and later tells his story to Fox News commentator Sean Hannity. Campbell claims that the event was “set up” by SEIU and Democratic organizers to bring supporters into the front rows and force protesters into the back rows. He also claims that four “thugs” from the “Pipe Fitters Union” not only “bum rush[ed]” the protesters, but then gave him their business cards. Campbell claims that a “28-year-old Democrat… with cancer” was assaulted by union members, but also identifies an adult woman as “his daughter.” “[T]his is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he says. “And I’ve been into jihadist areas. I’ve been dealing with, you know, Muslim extremists. And, you know, this is the most afraid I’ve ever been.” Campbell’s video shows little more than jostling and shoving at the door of the hall; he tells Hannity, “it’s what you don’t see in this video is what’s really telling.” [Fox News, 8/11/2009] Tommy Ates, a diarist on the liberal blog Daily Kos, later identifies Campbell as a member of a group he calls “the far right, libertarian, and ‘islamophobic’ Florida Security Council.” (Campbell directs viewers to the organization’s Web site during the Hannity interview.) Ates also asks some questions about Campbell’s claims: “How did Campbell get the information that the Tampa town hall had been stacked with Pipefitter union members? If the men guarding the door were union men committing assault, why would they give their cards to the man they were assaulting? Why didn’t Campbell file a police report? And (if J. Mark Campbell dealt with terrorists), why didn’t he identify what international media organization he served under? And if he didn’t go overseas, is Mark trying to say he dealt with Middle East domestic terrorists?” [Daily Kos, 8/12/2009]'Somewhere in All the Screaming, No One Got Heard' - One participant, Largo resident George Guthrie, says of the crowd, “They think they’re exercising their right to free speech, but they’re only exercising their right to disrupt civil discourse.” Andrew Reder, a reform opponent, defends the shouting from himself and his fellows by saying: “There were clearly people who were very, very upset. People are concerned about the direction of the county right now.” But Reder, who is allowed inside during the proceedings, admits that virtually nothing is accomplished in the meeting. “Somewhere in all the screaming, no one got heard,” he says. One protester, who identifies herself as a member of Beck’s 9/12 organization, says of Castor and Reed: “They’re hiding from their constituents. She works for us and needs to listen.” After the meeting, Florida Democratic Party chair Karen Thurman says in a statement: “Throughout the summer, we have been reaching out to Floridians to engage in an important debate on the future our health care system. We have heard story after story from people who are struggling to get the care they need. Recently, their thoughtful discussions are being interrupted by angry mobs—well funded and organized by Washington special interests—attempting to drown out the voices of the hard-working Floridians who are desperate for health insurance reform. These groups are not concerned about Americans’ access to quality heath care, but are extreme ideologues, only interested in ‘breaking’ the president (see July 17-22, 2009) and thwarting the change Americans voted for last November.” [WTSP, 8/7/2009; Tampa Tribune, 8/7/2009] Castor later echoes Thurman’s sentiments, saying: “The insurance industry and… Republican activists are manufacturing a lot of these phony protests.… I do expect some rabble-rousing.” Reed later says she was shocked at the behavior of some of the crowd. “When you get to the point of possible violence, you’ve gone over the edge,” she says. Castor says the protesters who appeared at this and other venues “would have been protesting Medicare.… They would never have accepted Social Security.” But protester Brad Grabill counters, “It’s the backlash to the arrogance of our government that you’re seeing here.” [St. Petersburg Times, 8/7/2009; Tampa Tribune, 8/7/2009] After the meeting, the Tampa 9/12 group posts the following on its Web site: “Be courteous while anyone is speaking, including Castor. We don’t want to sound like an ‘angry mob.’” [Tampa Tribune, 8/7/2009] Smith, the local Democratic Party official, later posts an e-mail she receives concerning the event. The message reads: “WAR IS COMING. YOUR THUG PR_CK B_STARD [apparently President Obama] SHOULD HAVE KEPT HIS F_CKING COMMUNIST MOUTH SHUT.” [Susan Smith, 8/7/2009]

Six people, including a local reporter, are arrested outside a public forum called by Representative Russ Carnahan (D-MO) at a middle school gymnasium outside of St. Louis. The forum, planned to allow constituents to discuss aging issues with Carnahan, quickly becomes contentious, with an overflow crowd denied entrance to the gymnasium and left to protest and wave signs in the parking lot. Many of the protesters are from a local anti-tax and anti-health care reform “tea party” organization. Local Democratic organizations counter with their supporters. Altercations in Parking Lot - Verbal, and later physical, altercations erupt between reform supporters and opponents. Six people are arrested outside the gym, including St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman, for interference after he refuses to stop taking pictures of the altercations. One of those arrested, reform supporter Brian Matthews, calls the situation outside the gym “a bull rush,” and adds, “It all came from behind.” After the forum, Matthews and a friend, Javonne Spitz, attempt to photograph a man who appears as if he has been assaulted. The police object, and, as Matthews tells it, several officers “charge” them “from behind.” The police push Matthews to the ground and arrest him for interference; Spitz is pepper-sprayed “after she was subdued by the police,” Matthews says, causing her to vomit as they are taken into custody. A woman is arrested for assault and destruction of property for pushing a woman who is recording the events on her cell phone, then taking the phone from her and breaking it. A man is arrested for refusing to leave a circle of people surrounding Matthews’s pepper-sprayed friend. A police spokesman later says: “You’ve got to understand—we’re at a very volatile situation, we’ve got 800 people and we’ve got to maintain order. [The police] did what they had to do.” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8/7/2009; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8/7/2009]Kenneth Gladney - Conservative activist Kenneth Gladney claims to have been attacked by several of those arrested as he attempts to hand out yellow flags with “Don’t Tread on Me” printed on them; police later confirm that two men were arrested for assaulting someone attempting to hand out flags and fliers. A reporter interviews Gladney as he awaits treatment at a local emergency room for injuries he says he suffered to his knee, back, shoulder, elbow, and face. Gladney, an African-American, says one of his assailants used a racial slur against him. “It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he says. Gladney later affirms that he had been hired by the St. Louis Tea Party organization to hand out flags, and adds, “I was attacked for something I believe in.” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8/7/2009; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8/7/2009] He appears on several conservative TV and radio shows, including those hosted by Laura Ingraham and Bill O’Reilly, where he tells his interviewers that he was punched in the face by three different people and kicked by a fourth. Unfortunately for his claim, he appears in perfect health on the broadcasts, with no indication of swelling or bruising. [Daily Kos, 8/8/2009] Tim Tagaris, the new media director for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), later sends an e-mail and links to photos taken during the altercation which contradict Gladney’s tale. According to Tagaris, the photos show an SEIU member getting off the ground holding his shoulder. Gladney is identified as an African-American male in a khaki (or gray) shirt “walking around just fine after the altercation.” Tagaris says it is only after he begins appearing on talk shows that he takes to a wheelchair (see August 8, 2009). [Daily Kos, 8/9/2009]Loud Attempts to Protest Health Care Reform - Inside the gym, protesters attempt to turn the discussion from the topic of the elderly to health care, an issue they apparently wish to shout down. “This isn’t even close to civil,” one audience member says after the forum. “The rudeness was beyond compare.” An elderly audience member calls the forum “a complete waste of time.” After the meeting, Carnahan says: “Sadly we’ve seen stories about disrupters around the country, and we have a handful of them here in Missouri. Instead of participating in a civil debate, they have mobilized with special interests in Washington who have lined their pockets by overcharging Americans for a broken health care system.” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8/7/2009] The next day, Carnahan says: “Sadly, they got out of control on both sides. That’s not helpful, and I condemn that activity.… Let’s have a spirited debate, a debate worthy of our country.” A member of the St. Louis Tea Party who attended another forum, local radio show host Dana Loesch, says: “Last night, it was a whole different scene. That’s not what this should be about.” Defending her colleagues, she adds: “I can’t blame them for being frustrated, but there are ways to handle this without calling these people mobs. This isn’t an angry mob.” SEIU spokeswoman Ramona Oliver says her union has no intention of confronting angry protesters. “The members didn’t come to talk to the angry mob outside, they came to talk to the congresspeople inside,” she says. “All our members want is to have a civil discussion. There is no campaign to confront the tea baggers.” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8/7/2009]

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), heavily involved in supporting health care reform, receives a call from an unnamed caller who threatens it with shooting. After the caller accuses SEIU of engaging in “thuggish violent tactics,” he says: “I suggest you tell your people to calm down, act like American citizens, and stop trying to repress people’s First Amendment rights.… That, or you all are gonna come up against the Second Amendment.” After issuing the veiled threat to shoot someone with the union, the caller concludes by saying, “[S]top the violence.” [Think Progress, 8/7/2009; Huffington Post, 8/10/2009]

Screenshot of Scott Oskay’s Twitter message urging health care reform protesters to ‘hurt’ ACORN and SEIU members ‘badly.’ [Source: TPMDC]Anti-health care reform protester Scott Oskay, who lives in New Mexico, sends out Twitter messages under the moniker “ScottEO” urging his hundreds of followers to attend health care debates with weapons. If members from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) attend the events “for disruption,” Oskay tells his Twitter followers to “stop being peaceful and hurt them. Badly.” He also urges his followers to take photographs of pro-health care advocates “on anticipation of disruption,” and “If ACORN/SEIU attends, remind them that your target is centralized, while you and your allies, are not.” Oskay includes the “hashtag” #iamthemob in some of his messages, an identification tag popularized in part by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. According to TPMDC, the particular hashtag “has gone viral on Twitter, appearing several times a minute according to a recent search.” Oskay, asked via Twitter if he advocates violence against SEIU or ACORN members, replies, “I would advocate retaliation for intimidation, be it verbal or physical.” [TPMDC, 8/7/2009; RootsWire, 8/7/2009] After news of Oskay’s call to violence goes public, posters on Malkin’s blog will accuse him of being a “liberal plant,” and one says: “The individuals going to protest at town halls have no idea who Scott Oskay is, nor care. To suggest that his foolish tweet(s) (whether he truly is a ‘libertarian’ or not) influences all those protesters is preposterous. There has been nothing to substantiate the claim. If it weren’t for TPM bemoaning his Twitter, it’s likely he would have gone completely unnoticed (by both sides). If you wish to be ‘afraid’ of those scary protesters because of this one guy’s Twitter page, be my guest, but let’s not pretend that he’s the leader of some movement.” Oskay’s Twitter page has since been removed, according to posters on Malkin’s blog. [Michelle Malkin, 8/10/2009]

One of the clearest indications that lobbying groups are directing the “grassroots” protests against health care reform comes during a forum held by Representative Tom Perriello (D-VA) in Ruckersville, Virginia. Many of the protesters hold up signs provided by Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see May 29, 2009), a corporate-funded lobbying group. One protester tells Perriello, “I’m angry that you ignore the law of the Constitution that requires Obama to prove that he is a natural born citizen.” After the event, the protester confirms that he believes President Obama is not an American citizen, but that he was contacted by AFP’s Ben Marchi to distribute talking points and signs before the event. Marchi is the Virginia state director of Americans for Prosperity and a former staffer for former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. In a related item, a local right-wing blogger calling himself “Send a Rope” attends this meeting. He follows Perriello around from forum to forum, videotaping him and accusing him of being a “traitor” for voting for energy reform. The blogger encourages people to send lengths of rope to the White House and Congress—implying that lawmakers will be lynched if they do not comply with the wishes of the senders—and declares on his Web site: “I don’t think that there are enough trees or rope in Washington, DC, to handle all the traitors you would find there.… I hope it doesn’t come to us having to do what we all think is coming with these guns, but you better be ready if it is.” The blogger does not claim a connection to AFP, but avows his inspiration is drawn in part from Fox News host Glenn Beck. [Think Progress, 8/11/2009]

A protester displays a handmade sign advocating “Death to Obama” and to his family. [Source: WHAG-TV]At a “town hall” meeting to discuss health care reform, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) is plagued with “almost non-stop” hecklers who “hoot and holler” at his every statement, according to the Baltimore Sun. Outside the town hall, an opponent of health care reform holds a small, handwritten sign that says: “Death to Obama. Death to Obama—Michelle and 2 stupid kids.” (The man is detained by Secret Service agents.) The event, held at Towson University, is packed with anti-reform protesters, who regularly outshout those who have come to support Cardin and health care reform. Cardin is a proponent of the Democrats’ health care reform efforts. “I know some of you don’t want me to mention the facts, but listen to the facts,” he says towards the beginning of the event, drawing screams and catcalls from the protesters. Cardin’s every statement is greeted with jeers and shouts, and protesters break “into raucous cheers” when their fellows yell dismissive or abusive remarks towards him. According to the Sun reporters in attendance, Cardin keeps calm throughout the event. His statements that illegal immigrants would not be given coverage under the plan receives some of the heaviest levels of profane jeering and booing; in contrast, one of the longest and loudest ovations comes when an audience member asks why tort reform is not part of the reform plan. When one audience member asks if Cardin will put himself under a public plan, he retorts: “I’m in a public plan. It’s called Medicare.” Cardin is protected throughout the event by a large number of uniformed university security officers. About 500 people make their way inside; hundreds more are turned away and conduct their own protests, arguments, disputes, and screaming matches outside the venue. One supporter tells a reporter: “I guess we’re going to rally and scream at each other. It’s ridiculous, but you can’t just have one side control the whole discussion.” One protester, carrying a sign reading “Obama Lies, Seniors Die” (see November 23, 2008, January 27, 2009, February 9, 2009, February 11, 2009, February 18, 2009, May 13, 2009, June 24, 2009, June 25, 2009, July 10, 2009, July 16, 2009, July 17, 2009, July 21, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 23-24, 2009, July 24, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 31, 2009 - August 12, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, Shortly Before August 10, 2009, and August 11, 2009), tells reporters, “I’m not a mob.” Cardin addresses the “euthanasia” issue in the venue, assuring the audience, “There would be nothing in a health overhaul plan about terminating people’s care at the end of life.” He then adds, “And by the way, President Obama is also a citizen of the United States.” [Baltimore Sun, 8/11/2009; MSNBC, 8/13/2009; Associated Press, 8/13/2009]

Congressman Dennis Moore (D-KS) reveals that he has received two credible and serious death threats in the last week, apparently over his support for health care reform. One was in the form of a phone call to his congressional office; the other was a threat he says he does not feel comfortable discussing with the media. [MSNBC, 8/13/2009]

A swastika painted by an unknown party on the office sign of a Democratic supporter of health care reform. [Source: Associated Press]A swastika is found spray-painted on a sign outside the district office of Representative David Scott (D-GA), an African-American Democrat and health care reform supporter. Scott says the swastika reflects an increasingly hateful and racist debate over health care; he hopes it may shock people into toning down their rhetoric. Scott’s staff found the Nazi graffiti sprayed on a sign outside his Smyrna, Georgia, office upon arriving to work. On August 1, Scott had been involved in a contentious debate over health care reform at a community meeting that was intended to be about plans for a new highway in the district. Scott says he has received mail and e-mails calling him “n_gger,” terming President Obama a Marxist, and photos of Obama with swastikas painted on his forehead. Scott reads one of the letters on the air to CNN’s Carlos Watson: “They address it to n_gger David Scott,” he says, and reads, “‘You were, you are, and you shall forever be, a n_gger.’ I got this in the mail today. Somewhere underneath this, bubbling up, is the ugly viscissitudes of racism. We should be proud we have an African-American president and celebrating him willing to take on the difficult issue of health care, an issue that reflects 19 percent of our economy. Here we are in Congress trying to grapple with an almost impossible task—almost two improbables together, bring the cost of health care down while expanding the coverage of it. That is a difficult assignment and it should not be relegated to these mobs of people who will come and hijack a meeting.… We have got to make sure that the symbol of the swastika does not win, that the racial hatred that’s bubbling up does not win this debate. There’s so much hatred out there for President Obama.… We must not allow it to intimidate us.” The Smyrna Police Department, along with the US Capitol Police and the FBI, are investigating the vandalism of the sign. [Associated Press, 8/11/2009; WXIA-TV, 8/11/2009; Huffington Post, 8/12/2009]Targeted by Fox News Talk Show Host - Liberal news and advocacy Web site Think Progress notes that the day before the vandalism, Fox News host Glenn Beck had targeted Scott in a tirade against health care reform, saying in part: “Congressman, how many Americans… have called and called and called, only to be treated like swine? You know what? I’m not sure, Congressman, if you are aware that not everybody has access to a brand new Gulfstream G550 [luxury jet]. I mean, it might be tough for the average Joe, who makes $129,000 less than you do to swing by the office for a meeting in Washington, DC. We hope you understand and accept our offer instead to use a common alternative to private jets that are so much better for the environment called the telephone. America, you call your congressman. You call just—the congressman that represents you. You call your senator right now.” [Think Progress, 8/11/2009]'Liberal Conspiracy' - Within minutes of the story becoming news, right-wing commentators and bloggers begin stating their belief that the swastika was painted by liberals to stir up controversy. The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack writes: “It’s possible that a neo-Nazi actually vandalized Rep. Scott’s offices. But given the fact that the Nazi imagery so neatly dovetails with the left’s smearing of health care protesters as fascists (see August 10-11, 2009), isn’t it more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters?” The next day, conservative blogger John Hawkins writes that “a liberal” probably painted the swastika on Scott’s sign. “Let’s see, you have a congressman who loves to play the race card and a controversial health care debate that the Left is losing,” he writes. “If you’re a liberal, painting a swastika on his door might look like a pretty good idea.” [Weekly Standard, 8/11/2009; John Hawkins, 8/12/2009] Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners: “I don’t buy this. This is too politically convenient.… I think the Democrats are doing this themselves.” [Media Matters, 8/11/2009]'Frightening Display of Bigotry and Ignorance' - Scott’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Wright, says she believes the accusations that Scott sympathizers painted the swastika are “funny.” Bill Nigut, the Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, says the swastika is a “frightening display of bigotry and ignorance that should not be tolerated by a democratic society.” [Think Progress, 8/11/2009]

Protester William Kostric, bearing his sign and wearing a gun strapped to his leg. [Source: London Daily Mail]President Obama holds a “town hall” meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to discuss health care. Although the audience is allowed to attend on a first-come first-served basis, it is comprised mostly of health care reform supporters. During the event, Obama repeatedly solicits questions from skeptics of his health care plan, telling the audience, “I don’t want people thinking I have a bunch of plants in here.” In his remarks, Obama addresses what he calls some of the “wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to what’s in the [reform] bill.” He says for years, patients have been “held hostage” by insurance companies, and adds that “for all the scare tactics out there, what is truly scary” and risky would be the status quo, such as projections that Medicare will be in the red within five years. [ABC News, 8/11/2009; Think Progress, 8/11/2009] Seventy percent of the participants in the town hall were chosen in a random, online lottery, without consideration of political affiliation. The questions Obama answers are not prescreened. [MSNBC, 8/12/2009]Debunking 'Death Panels' - Obama opens by saying: “I do hope that we will talk with each other and not over each other. Where we do disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that’s actually been proposed.… Because the way politics works sometimes is that people who want to keep things the way they are will try to scare the heck out of folks. And they’ll create boogeymen out there that just aren’t real.” [MSNBC, 8/12/2009] Obama notes the claim of so-called “death panels that will pull the plug on Grandma,” directly referring to former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK)‘s recent claim that the Democrats intend to create “death panels” that would decide who lives and dies (see August 7, 2009). Obama responds: “[I]t turns out that this, I guess, rose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care,” as well as living wills, hospice care, and the like. The “intention” is to help patients prepare for “end of life on their own terms.” Ironically, Obama adds, one of the chief sponsors of this idea is a Republican, Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who “sensibly thought this would expand people’s options.” (Isakson takes issue with being identified as a sponsor of “end-of-life” counseling—see August 11, 2009). Obama says that beneath the false claims of “death panels” exists a real concern: “if we are reforming the health system to make it more efficient that somehow that will mean rationing of care.” He gives an example of such a concern: “some bureaucrat” saying “You can’t have this test, you can’t have this procedure” because “some bean counter” says so. This will not be the case, Obama says. The reform package would ensure that doctors and patients, not bureaucrats, make such decisions. He notes that insurance company bureaucrats “right now are rationing care.… So why is it that people would prefer having insurance companies making those decisions rather than medical experts and doctors figuring out what are good deals for care?” Obama tells his listeners: “I want to be very clear” about the “underlying fear that people won’t get the care they need. You will have the care you need, but also care that is being denied to you right now—that is what we are fighting for.” [ABC News, 8/11/2009; Think Progress, 8/11/2009]Countering Claims of 'Enemies List' - Obama also counters recent claims that the White House is attempting to compile a list of “enemies” in asking that emails containing “fishy” health care information be forwarded to it. “Can I just say this is another example of how the media just ends up completely distorting what’s taking place?” he says. “What we’ve said is that if somebody has—if you get an email from somebody that says, for example, ‘ObamaCare is creating a death panel,’ forward us the email and we will answer the question that is being raised in the email. Suddenly, on some of these news outlets, this is being portrayed as Obama collecting an enemies list. Now, come on guys, here I am trying to be responsive to questions that are being raised out there—and I just want to be clear that all we’re trying to do is answer questions.” In recent days, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) claimed that the White House “want[s] information on opponents of its health care plan.” [Think Progress, 8/11/2009]Advocating Violence outside the Venue - Outside the venue, a man, William Kostric, stands in the crowd with a gun strapped to his leg. Under New Hampshire law, he is within his rights to openly carry a handgun. He carries a sign that reads, “It is time to water the tree of liberty.” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow notes: “It’s a reference, of course, to Thomas Jefferson’s famous words, ‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’ For perspective on the implication of Jefferson’s words in this context being quoted by the guy with the gun at the event as which the president was speaking, when Timothy McVeigh was arrested 90 minutes after the Oklahoma City bombing, he was wearing a t-shirt with that slogan and a picture of Abraham Lincoln on the front and a tree dripping with blood in the back” (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995). Maddow later notes that McVeigh’s shirt bore the words “Sic Semper Tyrannis”—“thus always to tyrants”—the words shouted by Lincoln’s assassin after firing the fatal shot. Another anti-reform protester, Richard Terry Young, is arrested by security officials after sneaking inside the building hours before Obama arrives. He is carrying a knife on his person and a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol in his truck with a round in the chamber. A number of anti-reform protesters from the New Hampshire Republican Volunteer Coalition also stage a protest outside the event. One advocates murdering all undocumented immigrants: “Why are we bankrupting this country for 21 million illegals who should be sent on the first bus one way back from wherever they come from? We don’t need illegals. Send them home once. Send them home with a bullet in their head the second time. Read what Jefferson said about the Tree of Liberty—it’s coming, baby.” [Think Progress, 8/11/2009; MSNBC, 8/12/2009; MSNBC, 8/13/2009]

Militia member Chris Broughton stands in front of a Phoenix VFW where President Obama is speaking. Broughton wears a pistol on his hip and an assault rifle strapped to his back. [Source: Arizona Republic]Twelve anti-health care reform protesters openly carry firearms outside an event in Phoenix featuring President Obama as the main speaker. One, a man initially identified only as “Chris,” carries an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle strapped to his back. Carrying such weapons is legal in Arizona if the bearer has a permit to carry. Obama is speaking at the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Outside the venue, people both supporting and opposing health care reform stage contentious, but peaceful, protests. [Arizona Republic, 8/17/2009; TPM LiveWire, 8/17/2009]'Forcefully' Opposing Will of Majority - “Chris,” interviewed by fellow protester Ernest Hancock on a home video posted on YouTube, says, “We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote.” He also speaks against taxation: “Just because you sic the government on people doesn’t make it morally okay to steal money from people. Taxation is theft.” Asked why he is carrying a weapon, “Chris” responds: “Because I can do it. In Arizona, I still have some freedoms.” He tells Hancock that “it would be insane” not to be armed, and says he wears a gun at all times. “Chris” is asked at the beginning of the video, “You gonna water the tree of liberty?” a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” He responds, “I hope not.” He also comes out “absolutely, totally against” health care reform, saying such a plan would amount to “stealing it from people.” The video is uploaded by two small Phoenix-area libertarian groups, Freedom’s Phoenix and 4409. [TPM LiveWire, 8/17/2009; TPM LiveWire, 8/18/2009]Veteran: 'I Gave Them the Right' to Protest - Another anti-reform protester, Jim Mariman, identifies himself as a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and says protesters are simply “speaking their hearts and minds.… These people can protest because I gave them the right.” [Arizona Republic, 8/17/2009]Interview Staged by Violent Militia Supporter - Hancock, who organized “Chris’s” trip to the Obama event and interviewed “Chris” with a 9mm pistol strapped to his leg, is later shown to have close ties to members of the violent Viper Militia group convicted and jailed for plotting to blow up at least seven federal buildings in 1996 (see July 1, 1996). Hancock tells CNN that the entire event, including the “interview,” was staged and planned well in advance. He has known “Chris” for two years because of their mutual work for 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX). Hancock had contacted the Phoenix police two days before the event to alert them to their intent to come armed to the event. He says he was partially motivated to display his weapon because of the controversy surrounding William Kostric, who brought a pistol to a previous Obama event in New Hampshire (see August 11, 2009). CNN’s Rick Sanchez tells Hancock, “A lot of people are going to look at this and say it was a publicity stunt,” and Hancock replies, “Absolutely—you guys are so easy.” Hancock says he, “Chris,” and the 10 other armed protesters all belong to local militia groups. [TPM LiveWire, 8/18/2009; TPM LiveWire, 8/18/2009; MSNBC, 8/20/2009] “Chris” will later be identified as Chris Broughton, a member of Tempe Baptist Church, whose pastor has repeatedly called for the divine assassination of Obama (see January 18, 2009). [Phoenix New Times, 8/29/2009]

After today’s media reports that a man armed with an automatic rifle patrolled back and forth in front of the venue where President Obama gave a speech on health care reform (see August 17, 2009), MSNBC progressive host Rachel Maddow interviews former Secret Service agent Joseph Petro, a 23-year veteran of the force. Maddow notes that aside from the man with the automatic weapon, about a dozen armed people were outside the venue in Phoenix today. Petro says the Secret Service does not routinely plan for this kind of situation, because “it’s not something the Secret Service often encounters.” He adds: “You know, the Secret Service is protecting [sic] presidents for a long time. And there are a whole series of processes and procedures that they go through to create perimeters. And each of those perimeters become more and more difficult to penetrate, up right to the end where the agents are actually around the president. But I think this is less a Secret Service issue and more as an issue for all of us. You know, you said a few days ago that the possibility of American politics turning to violence or terrorism at the fringe is not all that theoretical. I would argue that the vitriolic political rhetoric we’re hearing from some seemingly responsible people is stimulating a lot of these foolish stunts, and they’re not very helpful. And I think they’re dangerous actually. And I think they’re dangerous for two reasons. One is, it’s hard enough to protect the president. The Secret Service and the local police are being distracted from that—from that duty to keep our president safe. And I think the second reason, and maybe even more serious, is the fact that it could incite or encourage one of those individuals at the fringe that you mentioned, from doing something really dangerous and perhaps violent against the president or some other person. So, I think it’s—this is not a helpful situation and maybe the politicians should look at lowering some of the rhetoric to try to create a more positive atmosphere.” Petro again calls the display of firearms at a presidential event a “stunt” and “irresponsible.” Maddow goes further, calling it “an implied threat of force.” Petro notes: “It’s not in the Secret Service’s interest to have this kind of these theatrics going on around. Clearly, those people are not dangerous to the president at that moment. You know, they’re outside the building. They’re a block away or, you know, they’re not going to—they’re not an immediate danger to the president. But what they’re creating is an atmosphere that is—that could become dangerous for the president. And that’s what would concern me, and I’m sure it concerns the Secret Service.” [MSNBC, 8/18/2009]

Representative Wally Herger (R-CA) praises a constituent who describes himself as a “right-wing terrorist,” and tells listeners, “Our democracy has never been threatened as much as it is today” by the Obama administration’s policies. Herger holds a “town hall” meeting to discuss health care reform in Redding, California. The audience is largely made up of reform opponents who cheer when Herger calls the “public option” an “unacceptable” provision of reform. A local reporter writes, “Although Herger called several times for the audience to ‘respect each other’s opinions,’ those opposed to President Obama’s health care were greeted with cheers while the few in favor were interrupted with catcalls.” Two audience members are escorted out by police officers during the event, after arguing over the health care plan. One audience member says, “I am a proud right wing terrorist”; the audience largely cheers his declaration, and Herger beams: “Amen, God bless you. There is a great American.” Most of the audience members who ask questions denounce health care reform as a “socialist” idea. [Mount Shasta Herald, 8/21/2009; Think Progress, 8/22/2009; Daily Kos, 8/26/2009]

Health reform organizer Randall Terry pretends to stab an elderly lady in the neck as part of an anti-reform protest. A fellow protester wearing a Barack Obama mask looks on. [Source: Feministe (.us)]Randall Terry, the former head of the extremist anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, gleans headlines during health care protests in the Southeast. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, Terry is nearly arrested while standing outside the federal courthouse stabbing baby dolls. In Nashville, one of Terry’s supporters dons an Obama mask and pretends to assault passers-by. One Nashville resident who witnesses the activities tells a local reporter: “It’s an angry white man in a black man’s mask. They’re just trying to shock people. They’re trying to say, ‘Barack Obama doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care about your kids, because he’s black.’” During the same protest, Terry and an elderly supporter put on a bit of street theater: the elderly lady mimes seeking medical advice from Terry, who is dressed in a doctor’s jacket, and he pretends to stab her in the neck with a needle and kill her. According to Salon reporter Alex Koppelman, Terry’s twin messages in the protests are his opposition to abortion and to euthanasia—neither of which are supported in any health care reform bills before Congress. Before the protests, Terry wrote his supporters an e-mail: “It is refreshing to see the rage expressed at ‘town hall meetings.’ However, much of this anger is not about child-killing. It’s about the cost of the bill, or rationing, or if we can keep our current plan, or about treatments for the elderly. Our goal is to keep child-killing and euthanasia in the center of this debate until any vestige of taxpayers paying for murder is gone.” [Salon, 8/24/2009] At a Virginia rally soon after, Terry’s group re-enacts slave beatings (see August 24, 2009).

Rex Rammell. [Source: Spokane Spokesman-Review]A Republican candidate for the Idaho gubernatorial nomination, Rex Rammell, says that he would like to hunt and kill President Obama. Rammell makes his remarks during a local Republican Party fundraiser. Criticizing Governor C. L. Otter for not buying a “wolf tag,” or a license to hunt gray wolves, Rammell responds to a shout from an audience member about “Obama tags” by saying: “The Obama tags? We’d buy some of those.” Rammell later says he was merely joking and, though he supports nothing Obama is doing as president, would never call for Obama’s assassination. [Magic Valley Times-News, 8/27/2009] While Rammell may have been joking, he also distributes his “humorous” remark to his press distribution list for statewide reporting. [Boise Weekly, 8/27/2009]Extending the Joke; GOP Lawmakers Lambast Rammell - Within hours, Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) demands that Rammell apologize for the remarks. Crapo is also challenging Otter for the governor’s post in 2010. He says Rammell’s jokes undercut healthy debate over important issues. “Rex Rammell’s comments are in very poor taste and should not have been said,” Crapo says. “Remarks like these should not even be made jokingly. He should apologize for those remarks and for the perception they may have created.” Rammell refuses to apologize, noting that any hunting tags he might buy in Idaho would not be valid in Washington. He says, “Anyone who understands the law knows I was just joking, because Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue hunting tags in Washington, DC.” [Associated Press, 8/27/2009] Other Idaho Republicans, including Otter, Senator Jim Risch, Representative Mike Simpson, and former Governor Phil Batt, later join in Crapo’s condemnation of Rammell’s remarks. “Reckless and inflammatory statements like these gravely damage confidence in the political process and the good citizens who serve the public,” says Otter. “As governor, as an Idaho Republican, and as a citizen of our state, I reject and condemn this kind of rhetoric. There is no place for it in Idaho.” Simpson says, “It is absolutely irresponsible to say such inflammatory things, especially for someone who seeks to be a leader in Idaho.” Risch says: “I disgree often with the president and his policies. But the comment was totally unacceptable and should not have been made.” Batt says of Rammell’s two comments: “I think those are absolutely irresponsible statements. Totally irresponsible, maybe criminal. You’re not allowed to threaten the president, with good reason. We’ve had some tragic assassinations in our history and we don’t want to encourage them, even in a joking way.” Refusing to Apologize - Rammell again refuses to apologize, instead slamming Crapo for “giving away” two million acres of remote land “to the environmentalists,” and saying, “Phil Batt should go to jail for allowing the wolves to enter Idaho in the first place.” Rammell says they, not he, are the real criminals. Batt believes Rammell is trying to energize his long-shot campaign for governor. He also says he worries that Rammell’s remarks reinforce the national impression that Idaho is a haven for right-wing secessionists, militia members, and racists. “Even though Idaho has had a very minimal amount of overt racism and discrimination, it’s haunted us for years,” he says. “And each little indiscretion tends to magnify it. It’s really too bad.” [Idaho Statesman, 8/28/2009]Not an Issue of Free Speech, but Incitement to Violence - Idaho columnist Jill Kuraitis notes: “What would Rammell’s mother say? Mine would have said: ‘Threatening the president is a felony, and you will never say anything like that again. Clear?’ What would Rammell’s father say? Mine would have said: ‘I expect you to take this matter seriously. And if you ever hear anyone make a statement threatening the president, you will loudly object and then call the police.’” She adds: “Tossing a serious matter like this off with a simple ‘Rammell, what part of ‘that’s not funny’ don’t you understand?’ isn’t good enough. Calling the remark ‘tasteless,’ ‘unfortunate,’ or ‘inappropriate’ isn’t good enough, either. This isn’t about silencing anybody’s voice. Standing up to threats, no matter the intention of the speaker, doesn’t mean the speaker’s opinions should be silenced. Rhetoric encouraging any sort of violence, especially toward the president—any president—is the issue.” [New West Boise, 8/27/2009]

A ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ poster featuring the name of a Charlotte-area abortion provider. [Source: Women's Rights (Change.org)]A women’s clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Family Reproductive Health Clinic, is targeted with a series of “Wanted” posters naming the clinic’s doctors, and claiming they are “Wanted Dead or Alive” for the “crime” of abortion. The posters read in part: “We would like to introduce you to [two named doctors]. Their specialties are obstetrics, gynecology, and murder. Not only do these two men assist women and deliver babies, but they also harm women and kill babies.… You may contact them at their office or the clinic in which they perform the abortions.” The posters list the addresses of the named doctors’ private practices. The practice of anti-abortion organizations using such posters began as early as 1995 (see 1995 and After) and was ruled an illegal threat in 2002 (see May 16, 2002). The practice has allegedly resulted in the murders of three abortion doctors (see March 10, 1993, December 30, 1994 and After, and October 23, 1998), who were all named in similar “Wanted”-style posters. The practice has continued in spite of the court verdict (see January - April 2003). The clinic has been targeted for closure since 2002, when the Reverend Flip Benham, the head of Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue—see 1986), moved to the Charlotte area and vowed to shut it down. Since then, Benham and his group’s members have harassed and intimidated the clinic’s staffers and patrons; Benham has been videotaped screaming at patients that “Satan will drink the blood of your babies” and that the women will “go to your deaths” if they have abortions. Benham and his followers often use microphones amplified to what a clinic official calls “deafening levels” to speak to the patients, “swarm” patients’ cars as they enter the parking lot, and follow them up to the doors of the clinic, often stepping within inches of the patients as they harangue them. The clinic official says of the patients, “We try to prepare them for this when they make their appointment, but until you go through something like this, you can’t imagine what it’s like.” The police do little to curb the protesters’ actions, the official says. [Ms. Magazine, 9/2009]

AM radio towers toppled by ELF activists. [Source: CNN]Activists affiliated with the Earth Liberation Front (ELF—see 1997) topple two AM radio towers in Snohomish County, Washington, north of Seattle. The radio towers belong to radio station KRKO. In a press statement, ELF spokesman Jason Crawford says: “AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines. When all legal channels of opposition have been exhausted, concerned citizens have to take action into their own hands to protect life and the planet.” KRKO station manager Andy Skotdal says, “There’s quite a bit of destruction to the antenna system and it will probably take at least three months to get it back up and operational again.” Skotdal says much of the system has been “flattened like a pancake.” The activists stole an excavating machine to use in knocking down the towers. [CNN, 9/4/2009]

Joshua Bowman, a resident of Falls Church, Virginia, is arrested by US Capitol Police after attempting to gain access to the Capitol grounds as President Obama begins addressing a joint session of Congress on health care reform (see September 9, 2009). Bowman attempts to bypass a barricade impeding access to the Capitol building, asking officers if he can park in a secure lot. The lot requires a permit and a vehicle search. The officers, suspicious of Bowman’s timing, search his Honda Civic, and find a shotgun, a rifle, and ammunition in the trunk. Bowman is arrested for carrying two unregistered firearms. His intentions are unclear, according to police spokeswoman Sergeant Kimberly Schneider. The Capitol Police and Secret Service are on high alert during Obama’s speech, which features several members of the White House and almost the entire body of Congress present in a single location. [The Hill, 9/10/2009; Associated Press, 9/10/2009]

Robert Lowry. [Source: Think Progress]Members of Florida’s Southeast Broward [County] Republican Club take to the firing range for their weekly meeting, where they fire handguns, AK-47s, and AR-15s at targets. The purpose of having the meeting at a gun club, says chapter president Ed Napolitano, is to have fun, educate non-shooting members, and to send a political message: “Why are we here? Because we’re Republicans and we appreciate the fact that we have the right to bear arms,” he says. “Without the Second Amendment, I don’t think the other amendments would hold up. I think they would just be suggestions that the government would decide to do whatever they want.” However, the choice of targets causes some outrage. Most of the members shoot at traditional targets—human silhouettes—but some of the shooters use color posters depicting Arab men in traditional headdress holding rocket-propelled grenades, and one, Robert Lowry, shoots at a target with the letters “DWS” written next to the target’s head. Lowry is the Republican candidate for the district’s US House seat, running against incumbent Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), whose initials are DWS. Lowry says he didn’t write the initials on the target, but was aware of them before he began shooting. At first, he attempts to dismiss it as a “joke,” but after answering some questions on the target, he says it “was a mistake” to use a target labeled with the initials of his opponent. Wasserman Schultz says of Lowry’s action: “I find this type of action serious and disturbing. Tonight I am going to have to talk to my young children about why someone is pretending to shoot their mother. Trivializing violent behavior is the kind of extreme view that has no place in American politics.” Lowry issues a statement that reads: “Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a fine lady and we wish her and her family well. It is her continued support for harmful policies affecting seniors and her failure to act for the general benefit of US Congressional District 20 is what we take issue with.” Jennifer Crider of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says: “It’s absolutely outrageous. He needs to rethink his sense of humor. It wasn’t about issues, it wasn’t about anything of substance, it was a personal attack that wasn’t called for.” Napolitano defends the club’s use of targets designed to appear as Arab terrorists, saying: “That’s our right. If we want to shoot at targets that look like that, we’re going to go ahead and do that.” [Orlando Sun-Sentinel, 10/8/2009; Huffington Post, 10/9/2009; Miami Herald, 10/11/2009]

WBC leader Megan Phelps-Roper displays a sign outside the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC. Counter-protesters can be seen behind her. [Source: Think Progress]The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a small, virulently anti-gay organization in Topeka, Kansas, led by pastor Fred Phelps (see November 27, 1955 and After), holds a protest outside the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, which is attended by President Obama’s daughter Malia. The WBC Web site (see 1997) labels Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, “satanic spawn” of a “murderous b_stard.” The WBC protesters also picket the White House, the World War II memorial, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission field office, along with a number of other schools. The WBC also intends to protest outside the Bethesda campus of Sidwell Friends, where Sasha Obama attends. [Huffington Post, 11/9/2009] MSNBC host David Shuster posts on Twitter after the Washington protest: “Hopefully, some of the more rational conservatives/republicans will condemn this stuff today. It was beyond the pale.” Sidwell students and faculty stage a counter-protest, holding a banner with the Quaker phrase, “There is that of God in everyone.” A school official says none of the protesters try to enter the school. [Think Progress, 11/9/2009]

From left to right: Matthew Nestor, William Moyer, and Jason Hayes. [Source: Pottsville Republican-Herald]Five people, including three police officers, face federal charges in the murder of illegal immigrant Luis Ramirez (see July 12, 2008 and After). The four teenagers who beat Ramirez to death were acquitted of all but minor charges by an all-white jury (see May 2, 2009 and After). Two indictments charge the five with federal hate crimes, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy, in what authorities say was a racially motivated attack. The indictments are against two of the defendants in the murder trial, Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak, and three police officers: Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lieutenant William Moyer, and Officer Jason Hayes. Donchak and Piekarsky face a maximum penalty of life in prison plus additional time. Donchak is accused of conspiring with Nestor, Moyer, and Hayes to orchestrate a cover-up of the crime. The three officers face obstruction of justice charges, and Moyer faces charges of witness and evidence tampering, and of lying to the FBI. According to the indictments, Nestor, Moyer, and Hayes intentionally failed to “memorialize or record” statements made by Piekarsky about the incident, and “wrote false and misleading official reports” that “intentionally omitted information about the true nature of the assault and the investigation.” The officers face up to 20 years in prison on each of the obstruction counts. Moyer faces additional jail time if convicted of lying to the FBI. At the time of the murder, Hayes was dating Piekarsky’s mother, and Moyer’s son was a high school student who played football with the defendants. One of the charges involves false reports that an eyewitness, Arielle Garcia, reported that it was Brian Scully (see May 18, 2009), and not Piekarsky, who delivered the fatal kick to Ramirez’s head. Subsequent investigation determined that Piekarsky delivered the killing blow. [CNN, 12/15/2009; Philadelphia Weekly, 12/15/2009; Hazleton Standard Speaker, 1/28/2011] Piekarsky and Donchak will be convicted of violating Ramirez’s civil rights. Nestor and Moyer will be convicted of lesser charges, and Hayes will be acquitted entirely (see January 27, 2011).

ANSWP leader Bill White giving a Nazi salute. [Source: SPLC / Roanoke Times]Bill White, the leader of the American National Socialist Workers Party (ANSWP), is convicted in Roanoke, Virginia, of issuing death threats to several people, including Citibank employee Jennifer Petsche, a university administrator, and a human rights lawyer, and of intimidating tenants in Virginia Beach who had filed a lawsuit against their landlord. A judge will dismiss the charge of threatening the lawyer, but will uphold the other convictions. On March 22, 2007, White left a voicemail message for Petsche on her home phone informing her of his identity and saying that he had sent her an email concerning a credit card dispute he was having with Citibank. The email contained her current and former address, including the location of her parents’ home, and compared her to Chicago judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, whose husband and mother were murdered (see February 28, 2005) after a neo-Nazi had posted Lefkow’s home address on a Web site. “I must admit I have run out of patience with you and your smug attitude,” White wrote. “I hope the fact that I’ve obviously paid someone to find you conveys the seriousness with which I take your current attitude.” Petsche informed authorities and White was placed under surveillance. White was arrested in October 2008; his arrest forced the shutdown of the ANSWP blog and led to the collapse of the entire organization, which in 2008 had 35 chapters in 28 states. Before his trial, White complained that “the federal government has launched a massive effort to ‘decapitate’ white organizations.” During his trial, White was found to have posted personal information on a large number of persons on the ANSWP Web site, in many cases calling for his followers to track them down and attack them. Brian Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism says: “We live in a world where rhetoric is increasingly tilting toward violence, where extremists are becoming adept at going up to the line but not crossing it. The law is struggling to untangle protected hate speech from unprotected violence and threats, which often come in the same package. These trials put hate-mongers on notice: If they target their venom too narrowly, too violently, and too explicitly, they run the risk of crossing from political discourse to prison.” White has used the Internet to harass and threaten people since 1996, when he posted the name and phone number of a woman whom he believed was abusing her teenage daughter. “You should be able to write what you want on the Internet, whether it’s true or not,” he told a reporter at the time. For years, White ran Overthrow.com, a popular neo-Nazi Web site. In September 2007, after six black teenagers beat a white teenager in Jena, Louisiana, he posted five of their addresses and phone numbers under a banner that proclaimed, “Lynch the Jena 6!” He advised his readers to “get in touch and let them know justice is coming.” Local police provided the teens’ families with protection. White has long posted virulently racist material on his Web site, frequently using racial slurs and calling African-Americans “nig-rats” and “vermin.” White did not restrict his rhetoric to blacks; in 2007, he advocated the assassination of George W. Bush, writing that “a well-placed bullet can solve a lot of problems,” and has advised that “we need to start SHOOTING AND KILLING Mexicans as they cross the border.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 3/2010]

Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV), vying for the seat held by Harry Reid (D-NV), advocates armed insurrection to bring about conservative change in America, and implies that she is ready to use violence to defeat Reid in the race. Angle tells radio talk show host Lars Larson that she believes the US is ripe for an armed revolution, and if “this Congress keeps going the way it is,” Americans will implement “Second Amendment remedies.” The Second Amendment grants citizens the right to own firearms. Larson asks Angle where she stands on the Second Amendment, and she replies: “You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, ‘My goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?’ I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.” Larson later says that he believes Angle means exactly what she says, particularly about supporting armed insurrection against Congress. “If it continues to do the things it’s doing, I think she’s leaving open that possibility,” Larson will say. “And I think the founders believed that the public should be able to do that when the government becomes out of control. It just matters what you define as going too far.” [Washington Post, 6/15/2010] At least one other time during the primary, Angle publicly advocates that Reid be “take[n] out” with “Second Amendment remedies” (see June 16, 2010). After winning the Nevada Republican primary for the Senate, Angle will retract her remarks (see June 30, 2010). Recently Left Hard-Right Independent American Party - Angle is a relatively recent convert to the Republican Party. For much of the 1990s, she belonged to the Independent American Party (IAP), a hard-right group that combines libertarianism—gun advocacy, tax repeal, and states’ rights—with Christian social conservatism and an avowed fear of what it calls the “North American Union,” a supposed union of Canada, Mexico, and the US. According to IAP members, Angle left the party in 1998 when she ran for the Nevada state assembly. IAP executive director Janine Hansen will tell a reporter: “It was because she wanted to run for office. And it was difficult for members of our party to get elected at that time. It was a strategic move on her part.” The IAP considers the Republican Party “corrupt and socialistic,” according to its Web site. IAP founder David Hansen drew national attention in 1992 by bringing a sign to a political rally that read, “If Guns Are Outlawed, How Can We Shoot the Liberals?” [TPMDC, 6/15/2010]Supports Violent Militia - Angle is also a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group that enjoins its members—which include many soldiers and police officers—to refuse to follow orders they consider unconstitutional, and warns that the government intends to turn American cities into “giant concentration camps” (see March 9, 2009 and March 2010). The organization has been cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a violent militia group that is actively recruiting members for an upcoming armed revolt. Angle’s husband Ted Angle will say in June 2010 that while he is not sure whether he or his wife are full-fledged members, both of them stand firmly behind its principles. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes will later say that because neither Angle nor her husband are members of a uniformed service, they can only be associate members, and he is not sure whether Sharron Angle is a member. Rhodes will also deny that Oath Keepers is a militia. “We are an education outfit,” he will say. [TPMDC, 6/9/2010]

A protester holds a Confederate battle flag during a tea party rally in Olympia, Washington. [Source: credit Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights]Some 300 tea party members and supporters from throughout Washington State gather in Olympia for the “Sovereignty Winter Fest.” The rally features state legislators, candidates for state and federal seats, tea party leaders, and activists from a number of far-right and white supremacist groups. The rally is to support a number of “state’s rights” 10th Amendment “sovereignty” resolutions in the Washington legislature (see March 23, 2011). Devin Burghart of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights later writes, “This turn away from anti-tax and anti-healthcare rhetoric towards state sovereignty language points to a possible radicalization of the [tea party] movement.” Many slogans and symbols associated with white supremacists are prominently displayed during the proceedings, including the Confederate battle flag and the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. Some signs read: “Kick _ss America. Remember 9-11”; “Armed and Dangerous with my Vote”; “Had enough? Reclaim State Sovereignty”; “The 10th Amend. States Rights. Yes We Can”; “FOX News for the truth”; and “Kill Government Take Over NOT our Freedom.” The first speaker is State Representative Matt Shea (R-Spokane Valley), who sponsored the so-called “State Sovereignty Resolution” that was recently defeated in the Washington legislature. The bill reads in part, “the State of Washington hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.” The bill also claims to “serve as a Notice and Demand to the federal government to maintain the balance of powers where the Constitution of the United States established it and to cease and desist, effective immediately, any and all mandates that are beyond the scope of its constitutionally delegated powers.” The language of Shea’s bill mirrors almost exactly language used by far-right militias of the 1990s who agitated for “state sovereignty,” according to Burghart. State Senator Val Stevens (R-Arlington) confirms the link by telling ralliers: “When I first introduced the 10th Amendment [legislation] back in 1997, it was met with ‘oh gee wiz, what is she doing now.’ It was a national movement at that time of a few of us who recognized that we were being stepped on by our federal government. That much of what took place here in the state of Washington was the result of what our federal government was passing on us. And we wanted to maintain that we are sovereign, and that we do have rights. And we wanted to re-establish that 10th Amendment.” Stevens has long boasted of her links to state and regional militias. One prominent participant is Darin Stevens, head of the Spokane 9/12 project (see March 13, 2009 and After). With a pistol strapped to his hip, he reads a portion of the Declaration of Independence, then introduces Martin “Red” Beckman, a well-known anti-Semite, anti-tax protester, and militia supporter. Stevens introduces Beckman with a boast that Beckman is a veteran militia defender. Robertson also endorses the positions of the Reverend John Weaver, a Christian Identity (see 1960s and After) supporter and ardent neo-Confederate. A number of area tea party activists address the crowd, including attorney Stephen Pidgeon, who uses his time to accuse President Obama of not being an American citizen. And tea party leader Doug Parris tells the crowd how tea parties can take over Washington’s Republican Party precinct by precinct, saying that such a takeover is necessary because of the Republicans’ “Star of David” strategy (apparently referring to the Republican Party’s support for Israel). [Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 1/19/2010]

Charles Dyer after being detained by Oklahoma law enforcement authorities. [Source: Duncan Herald]Ex-Marine Charles Dyer is arrested on child rape and federal weapons charges. Dyer, a declared member of the “Oath Keepers” organization (see March 9, 2009 and March 2010), is charged with raping a seven-year-old girl at his home in Marlow, Oklahoma. When Stephens County deputies search his home, they find a Colt M-203 grenade launcher they believe was stolen from a California military base in 2006. Dyer’s arrest causes a split among members of the far-right “Patriot” movement, with militia members rallying behind Dyer and organizations such as the Oath Keepers distancing themselves from supporting him. Dyer was charged with making disloyal statements when, as an active-duty Marine, he posted what Mother Jones calls “incendiary videos on YouTube” under the moniker “July4Patriot.” Wearing a skull mask that partially obscured his face, he called for armed, violent resistance against the US government, railed against the “New World Order” (see September 11, 1990), and invited viewers to join him at his Oklahoma home for military training, at what he said the government “will call… a terrorist training camp.” Dyer was acquitted and continued making video protests and exhortations without the mask, becoming popular among fringe militia elements. In one video made after his discharge from service, he announced his intention of becoming a “domestic terrorist.” Dyer has been a visible and outspoken member of the Oath Keepers since the organization’s first rally, and for a time he was considered an Oath Keeper spokesman, and with Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes’s blessing represented the group at a July 4, 2010 tea party rally. He often featured Oath Keeper logos and materials on his YouTube videos, and wore an Oath Keeper sweatshirt on some of them. Following Dyer’s arrest, Rhodes removes Dyer’s postings and material from the Oath Keepers Web site, and denies Dyer had any official connection with the group. Rhodes insists that Dyer never paid his $30 dues to become a member, though the organization has always said it costs nothing to join, and says he asked Dyer to stop identifying himself as an Oath Keeper after he learned that Dyer was trying to recruit for an Oklahoma militia. A blogger for American Resistance Radio calls Rhodes “beyond cowardly” and labels Dyer the “1st POW of the 2nd American Revolution.” On the Oath Keepers site, a Marine from Arizona speculates that the charges against Dyer could be the start of a false campaign to arrest and detain American patriots. But if the allegations are true, he writes, “may he rot in hell.” [Duncan Banner, 1/16/2010; Mother Jones, 1/22/2010; Southern Poverty Law Center, 1/22/2010; TPMMuckraker, 1/22/2010; Mother Jones, 3/2010]

A Wichita, Kansas, jury convicts Scott Roeder of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country to perform late-term abortions (see May 31, 2009 and May 31, 2009). The jury only deliberates for 37 minutes before handing down its verdict. Roeder admitted shooting Tiller during the trial, said he felt no remorse whatsoever for his actions, and instead justified them by saying he saw no other way to prevent abortions. Roeder will receive a sentence of life in prison; prosecutors say they hope to add restrictions to his sentence that will prevent him from coming up for parole for 50 years. Dr. Tiller’s widow, Jeanne Tiller, says in a statement, “At this time, we hope that George can be remembered for his legacy of service to women (see January 20, 2010), the help he provided for those who needed it, and the love and happiness he provided us as a husband, father, and grandfather.” [New York Times, 1/29/2010; AlterNet, 1/29/2010]Roeder Traced Belief to Conservative Televangelist - During the trial, Roeder said that he became a fervent Christian in 1992 after watching televangelist Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. He said he fell to his knees at the end of the show, during the customary appeal to viewers to “commit your life to Christ.” From then on, Roeder said, his Christian views went “hand in hand” with his opposition to abortion. Reporter Adele Stan writes, “The interesting thing in all this is not that Roeder converted to Christianity, but that he did so via a ministry whose definition of Christianity is the demonization of those who oppose the views of those who embrace one particular theological strain of Christianity.” [AlterNet, 1/29/2010]Abortion Rights Organizations Say Roeder's Conviction Sends Powerful Message to Perpetrators of Violence - Abortion-rights organizations applaud Roeder’s conviction, saying it sends a clear and powerful message to those who would commit violence against abortion providers, and add that it also points up the need for more intensive law enforcement and investigations into those conspiring to commit such violence (see May 31, 2009). “They need to take this investigation to the next stage,” says Katherine Spillar of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “We don’t have rigorous enough enforcement.” Anti-Abortion Organizations Split on Verdict - Some anti-abortion organizations call the trial unfair, and say that the guilty verdict will breed more violence. Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue (OR—see 1986), denounces Roeder as a “cold, calculated, and despicable” killer, and says Roeder does not represent the anti-abortion movement. However, Randall Terry, the former head of OR, calls the trial a “scam” and contends that Roeder had never been allowed to “really tell his side of the story.” Terry, who now leads a far-right anti-abortion organization called Insurrecta Nex, says Roeder should have been allowed to use descriptions and images of aborted fetuses to help jurors understand why he felt compelled to kill Tiller. Others take Terry’s position even further. “People had said if he were acquitted it would be open season on doctors,” says convicted clinic bomber Michael Bray (see September 1994). “But if you want to see what’s going to stimulate people to do something, you’re inviting more of the same by not giving him a fair trial.” Bray and other abortion opponents say Judge Warren Wilbert erred in not allowing the jury to consider a charge of voluntary manslaughter if it decided that, under Kansas law, “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.” The judge refused to allow that charge to be considered. [New York Times, 1/29/2010; AlterNet, 1/29/2010]

Lloyd Woodson. [Source: Associated Press]Lloyd Woodson, a New Jersey resident, remains in custody after being charged with possession of weapons in a suspected plan to attack a nearby Army base. Woodson was found with a cache of weapons, including guns and a grenade launcher, and a map of New York’s Fort Drum in a New Jersey motel room. Police were tipped off by a convenience store clerk in Branchburg, who called officers around 4 a.m. to report that Woodson was behaving “strangely” in his store. When police arrived, Woodson fled, and officers tackled him in a nearby parking lot. Woodson was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying an assault rifle. Prosecutors refuse to publicly speculate on what kind of threat they believe Woodson posed. Assistant US Attorney Andrew Kogan tells a state judge why Woodson was arrested and why he should remain in custody: he was carrying weapons and had more in his motel room; he once deserted the military; he has minimal connections to New Jersey, making him more likely to flee; his history with weapons made him a threat; and he said in an interview that he intended to use weapons in furtherance of a crime. The US Attorney’s office refuses to elaborate on Kagan’s court statement. The FBI says Woodson has no known terrorist connections. Woodson enlisted in the Navy in 1988, deserted in 1989, and spent eight years as a fugitive before returning briefly to Navy custody in 1997. [Associated Press, 1/29/2010]

The Echelon Building in Austin, Texas, in the aftermath of Andrew Joseph Stack’s suicide crash. [Source: Jack Plunkett / Associated Press]Andrew Joseph Stack, a software engineer and pilot in Austin, Texas, burns his house down, then takes to the air in his Piper Dakota plane and crashes it into an Austin office building in an apparent attempt to destroy the large IRS office inside. Stack dies in the crash, as does IRS manager Vernon Hunter. Thirteen others are wounded, two critically. IRS revenue officer Peggy Walker, who is sitting at her desk when Stack’s plane crashes into the building, will later tell a reporter: “It felt like a bomb blew off. The ceiling caved in and windows blew in. We got up and ran.” IRS agent William Winnie says he was on the third floor of the building when he saw a light-colored, single engine plane coming toward the building. “It looked like it was coming right in my window,” Winne tells reporters. He says the plane veered down and smashed into the lower floors. “I didn’t lose my footing, but it was enough to knock people who were sitting to the floor,” he recalls. Two days before his flight, Stack, a software engineer, posted an angry rant on his personal Web site. “Nothing changes unless there is a body count,” he said, and went on to blast corporations, the Catholic Church, and bailouts for Wall Street. Stack wrote about the “storm raging in my head” and railed against taxation without representation. “Anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a ‘crackpot,’ traitor, and worse,” he wrote. He expressed his anger at the “handful of thugs and plunderers [that] can commit unthinkable atrocities,” including bailed-out General Motors executives and the drug and insurance companies who “are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple.” He hopes that “the American zombies wake up and revolt.” He concluded: “Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand.… I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well. The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.” The note was signed, “Joe Stack (1956-2010).” Before the attack is determined not to be foreign terrorism, at least two Texas Air National Guard F-16 fighter jets are scrambled in Houston, and President Obama is briefed. [New York Daily News, 2/18/2010; CBS News, 2/18/2010; CBS News, 2/18/2010; Associated Press, 2/19/2010; Your News Now, 2/25/2010] The press soon reprints the entire posting, which the Associated Press calls “a rambling anti-government manifesto.” [CBS News, 2/18/2010; Associated Press, 2/19/2010] Federal authorities find a note in Stack’s car, parked at the Georgetown Airport where he took off; the note says there is a bomb in the airport. The FBI investigates and finds no bomb. [CBS News, 2/18/2010] Stack used to play in a rock band; Pam Parker, whose husband leads the band, says Stack is usually “easy-going,” and though he “talked politics like everyone[, he] didn’t show any obsession.” The Web posting “sounded like his voice, but it was nothing I ever heard him say. Clearly there was crazy in him but it must have been way in the back of his head, it wasn’t who Joe was.” Patrick Beach, who also played in the band with Stack, tells a reporter, “I talked to a lot of people who knew him better than I did, and no one saw anything like this coming.” Beach says it is hard to comprehend how Stack, whom Beach says loved his wife and stepdaughter, could be the same person who wanted to “commit mass murder.” [CBS News, 2/18/2010; Associated Press, 2/19/2010] According to Stack’s father-in-law Jack Cook, Stack has a “hang-up” about the IRS, and his marriage to his wife Sheryl is strained; Cook says the night before Stack’s attack on the IRS building, his wife had taken her daughter to a hotel to get away from Stack. [Associated Press, 2/19/2010] The press later learns that Stack is in the middle of an audit for failing to report income, in a case centered around his “Universal Life Church,” a “home church” founded by Stack and his wife. Stack had declared the church a tax shelter in violation of federal law, and had been ordered by the court to pay over $14,000 in back taxes along with an undisclosed amount in penalties, fines, and interest. [Your News Now, 2/25/2010]

Representative Steve King. [Source: The Iowa Republican (.com)]Some on the political right label Andrew Joseph Stack, who killed himself and an IRS manager by crashing his private plane into an Austin, Texas, office building (see February 18, 2010), a hero. The labeling begins when Stack’s adult daughter, Samantha Bells, calls him a hero because of his antigovernment views on an ABC morning talk show. While his suicide attack was “inappropriate,” she says, “[m]aybe now people will listen.” White supremacist Web sites and forums fill up with expressions of approval and support, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). One poster on the neo-Nazi Web site Stormfront calls Stack “a true HERO!!!” While Stack had no apparent connections to white supremacist or other hate groups, the SPLC’s Mark Potok says, many of those groups’ members have become excited by Stack’s action. “A few other white supremacists suggested that lionizing Stack could be a bad thing for the radical right, but they appeared to be in a minority,” Potok observes. Ken Hunter, who lost his father Vernon Hunter in the crash, says he is alarmed by the fact that some people are portraying Stack as noble and courageous. “How can you call someone a hero who after he burns down his house, he gets into his plane… and flies it into a building to kill people?” he asks on the same ABC broadcast. “My dad, Vernon, did tours of duty in Vietnam. My dad’s a hero.” [Christian Science Monitor, 2/22/2010] The controversy intensifies when Representative Steve King (R-IA) blames the IRS for Stack’s actions. He refuses to condemn the attack, or Hunter’s murder, saying instead: “I think if we’d abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn’t have a target for his airplane. And I’m still for abolishing the IRS, I’ve been for it for 30 years and I’m for a national sales tax.… It’s sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it’s going to be a happy day for America.” Asked if Stack’s grievances against the IRS were legitimate, King responds: “I don’t know if his grievances were legitimate, I’ve read part of the material. I can tell you I’ve been audited by the IRS and I’ve had the sense of ‘Why is the IRS in my kitchen? Why do they have their thumb in the middle of my back?‘… It is intrusive and we can do a better job without them entirely.” [Think Progress, 2/22/2010]

Private Lee Pray, a member of the Oath Keepers. His finger tattoo spells out ‘THOR.’ [Source: Mother Jones]The progressive news magazine Mother Jones publishes a detailed examination of the Oath Keepers (see March 9, 2009), one of the fastest-growing “patriot” groups on the far right. The group was founded in April 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer who once served as an aide to libertarian US Representative Ron Paul (R-TX). According to author Justine Sharrock, it has become “a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers.” (Sharrock is referring to the burgeoning “tea party” movement, the people who believe President Obama is not an American citizen (see August 1, 2008 and After and October 8-10, 2008), and the “9/12” organization formed by lobbying organization FreedomWorks and Fox News host Glenn Beck—see March 13, 2009 and After.) Beck, MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan (see May 28, 2009, June 20, 2009, and July 16, 2009), and CNN host Lou Dobbs have publicly praised the organization. In December 2009, a grassroots summit organized by the Oath Keepers drew lawmakers such as US Representatives Phil Gingrey (R-GA) and Paul Broun (R-GA). Sharrock’s profile is based on research and interviews with Rhodes, other Oath Keeper leaders, and ordinary members such as Private Lee Pray, who is stationed at Fort Drum, New York. Group Made Up of Uniformed Citizens - What sets the group apart from others on the far-right fringe is that its membership is restricted to US citizens in uniform—soldiers, police officers, and veterans. At its ceremonies, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution, but then go a step further, vowing to disobey “unconstitutional” orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government. Pray says he knows of five fellow Oath Keepers at Fort Drum. Preparing for Tyranny, Martial Law - He and other members are actively recruiting, arguing that under Obama, the US government is turning increasingly tyrannical and must be opposed, violently if need be. Pray says that many Oath Keepers had problems with some government policies under President Bush, but those reservations have grown with Obama’s ascension to power. Rhodes tells Sharrock: “Too many conservatives relied on Bush’s character and didn’t pay attention. Only now, with Obama, do they worry and see what has been done. Maybe you said, ‘I trusted Bush to only go after the terrorists.’ But what do you think can happen down the road when they say, ‘I think you are a threat to the nation?’” Pray, like many members, believes it will be a year at most before Obama declares martial law, perhaps under the pretext of a natural disaster or another 9/11-level terror attack, and begin detaining citizens en masse and banning interstate travel. Another Oath Keeper advises Sharrock to prepare a “bug out” bag with 39 items including gas masks, ammunition, and water purification tablets, so that she will be prepared “when the sh_t hits the fan.” Pray and his friends have a “fortified bunker” at one of their member’s parents’ home in rural Idaho, where they have stashed survival gear, generators, food, and plenty of weapons. If need be, they say, they will attack their fellow soldiers. Pray describes himself as both a “birther” and a “truther,” believing that Obama is an illegitimate president installed by a government that launched the 9/11 attacks on its own soil to drive the country further down the road towards tyranny. Pray has suffered demotion for a drinking problem, and was denied deployment to Iraq when he injured his knees in a fall. Right now his job involves operating and maintaining heavy equipment on base, and he is listed currently as “undeployable.” He and his fellow Oath Keepers on base spend their free time researching what they call the “New World Order” (see September 11, 1990) and conspiracies about detention camps. Pray is one of the few active-duty members who will agree to have his name made public; Rhodes encourages active-duty soldiers and police officers to hide their membership in the group, saying a group with large numbers of anonymous members can instill in its adversaries the fear of the unknown—a “great force multiplier,” he calls it. Pray worries that the CIA is monitoring his phone calls and insists that unmarked black cars follow him when he drives. A fellow Fort Drum Oath Keeper who only allows his first name of Brandon to be used, and who is also “undeployable” due to his own injuries, says that the off-limits areas of Fort Drum contain concentration camps. Sharrock notes that the soldiers’ behavior might be considered “paranoid,” but writes, “Then again, when you’re an active-duty soldier contemplating treason, some level of paranoia is probably sensible.” Stewart Rhodes - Rhodes, a Yale graduate and constitutional lawyer, is working on a book currently titled We the Enemy: How Applying the Laws of War to the American People in the War on Terror Threatens to Destroy Our Constitutional Republic. He is an Army veteran who was honorably discharged after injuring his spine in a parachute jump, and worked for a time supervising interns in Ron Paul’s Congressional office. He briefly practiced law in Montana, has worked as a sculptor and a firearms instructor, and writes a gun-rights column for SWAT magazine. He describes himself as a libertarian, a staunch constitutionalist, and a devout Christian. He decided to abandon electoral politics in 2008 after Paul’s presidential bid failed, and turned instead to grassroots organizing. In college, he became fascinated with the idea that had German soldiers and police refused to follow orders in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler could have been stopped. In early 2008, he read a letter in SWAT magazine declaring that “the Constitution and our Bill of Rights are gravely endangered” and that service members, veterans, and police “is where they will be saved, if they are to be saved at all!” Rhodes responded with a column predicting a future President Hillary (“Hitlery”) Clinton turning the US into a despotism while dressed in her “Chairman Mao signature pantsuit.” He asked readers if they intended to follow this “dominatrix-in-chief,” hold militia members as enemy combatants, disarm citizens, and shoot all resisters. If “a police state comes to America, it will ultimately be by your hands,” he wrote. You had better “resolve to not let it happen on your watch.” Shortly thereafter, he set up a blog he called “Oath Keepers,” asking for testimonials from soldiers and veterans, and began gaining popularity. Military officers offered assistance. A Marine Corps veteran invited Rhodes to speak at a local tea party event. Paul campaigners provided strategic advice. In March 2009, Rhodes attended a rally staged by a pro-militia group, and in front of the crowd of some 400 participants, officially launched the Oath Keepers movement (see March 9, 2009). Buchanan and Beck have praised Rhodes, with Buchanan predicting that he “is headed for cable stardom.” Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of Infowars.com has repeatedly featured Rhodes and the Oath Keepers on his radio talk show. Attracts Attention of Anti-Hate Organizations - The Oath Keepers has come to the attention of anti-hate organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which have cited the group in their reports on rising anti-government extremism. Rhodes has accused the SPLC of trying “to lump us in with white supremacists and neo-Nazis, and of course make the insinuation that we’re the next McVeigh,” referring to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Author David Neiwert, an expert on right-wing groups, tells Sharrock that it would be a mistake to term them another amalgamation of “right-wing crackpots” or “extremist nimrods,” as other press outlets have done. “[T]he reality is a lot of them are fairly intelligent, well-educated people who have complex worldviews that are thoroughly thought out,” Neiwert says. Neiwert and Sharrock tie Rhodes’s message to the much earlier views expressed by members of the now-defunct Posse Comitatus (see 1969), and note that the last reemergence of this brand of rhetoric took place during the last time a Democrat, Bill Clinton, was in the White House. Today, groups like the Oath Keepers use the Internet, particularly Facebook and YouTube, and cable news networks, to connect with like-minded citizens around the world. “The underlying sentiment is an attack on government dating back to the New Deal and before,” Neiwert says. “Ron Paul has been a significant conduit in recent years, but nothing like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann [R-MN] and Sarah Palin (see October 10, 2008)—all of whom share that innate animus.” While Rhodes and most Oath Keepers say they will only begin active disobedience under the delineated circumstances laid out by the group, some members have gone down their own paths of violence. Oath Keeper Daniel Knight Hayden set off a controversy last April 15 with a barrage of messages on Twitter stating his intention to “START THE KILLING NOW!” by engaging in a gun battle at the Oklahoma State Capitol and urging other Oath Keepers to join him (see April 14-15, 2009). Rhodes denounced Hayden, but Neiwert notes that Rhodes’s inflammatory and inciteful rhetoric can have what he calls “an unhinging effect” on people inclined toward violent action. “It puts them in a state of mind of fearfulness and paranoia, creating so much anger and hatred that eventually that stuff boils over.” In January, ex-Marine and Oath Keeper spokesman Charles Dyer, who beat a treason charge for advocating armed resistance to the government, was arrested on charges of raping a 7-year-old girl, and authorities found stolen military weaponry at his home; some militia groups have hailed Dyer as “the first POW of the second American Revolution,” but Rhodes removed information about him from the organization’s Web sites and now denies he was ever a member (see January 21, 2010). Rhodes says he and his Web staff are “overwhelmed” with the need to delete messages encouraging racism and violence from their blog, and recently he shut down one Internet forum because of members’ attempts to use it to recruit for militia organizations. Chip Berlet of the watchdog group Political Research Associates and an expert on far-right movements equates Rhodes’s rhetoric to yelling fire in a crowded theater. “Promoting these conspiracy theories is very dangerous right now because there are people who will assume that a hero will stop at nothing.” What will happen, he adds, “is not just disobeying orders but harming and killing.” Rhodes acknowledges that to follow through on his rhetoric could be risky, and reminds Sharrock that freedom “is not neat or tidy, it’s messy.” Gold Standards, Muslim Rights, and Treasonous Federal Institutions - During a recent meeting at a North Las Vegas casino, Sharrock took part in discussions of whether Muslim citizens had rights under the Constitution, why the Federal Reserve was a treasonous institution, why the government should be run under Biblical law and a gold standard, and how abortion-rights advocates are part of a eugenics plan targeting Christians. The group takes no official stance on the US’s war on terror or its foreign engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a recent Oath Keeper member who promoted his dual membership in the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) on the Oath Keepers blog had his post removed by Rhodes, who called the IVAW a “totalitarian” and “communist” organization. Expanding Membership - Rhodes says the group has at least one chapter in each of the 50 states, and claims the group has some 29,000 members, not counting the ones who keep their membership off the computer lists. Volunteers are preparing a large “outreach” to soldiers serving overseas. The organization has worked hard to become a staple of tea party events, and tells tea partiers that bringing guns to those events reminds participants of their constitutional rights. The organization has made strong connections with groups such as the Constitution Party and Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and national figures such as Ralph Reed, the former director of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, and Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America. Elected officials such as Broun, Gingrey, Bachmann, and Steve King (R-IA) have expressed their interest in sponsoring legislation crafted by Oath Keeper leaders. [Mother Jones, 3/2010]

An appeals court overturns the verdict in Snyder v. Phelps, in which the father of a slain Marine was awarded $5 million in a judgment against the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After). WBC members had picketed the funeral of Matthew Snyder (see March 10, 2006 and After), and Snyder’s father Albert Snyder filed a lawsuit against the WBC claiming harassment and the infliction of severe emotional distress (see October 2007 and April 3, 2008). The appeals court rules that even though the WBC protesters displayed “utterly distasteful” signs at Snyder’s funeral, the signs commented on issues of “public concern” and were therefore constitutionally protected speech. The court also orders Snyder to pay the church over $16,000 in legal feels and court costs, a decision Snyder calls “a slap in the face.” Snyder will appeal to the US Supreme Court (see March 2, 2011). [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2007; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012; Anti-Defamation League, 2012]

Logo of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks the activities of so-called ‘hate groups’ around the US. [Source: GuideStar]The number of extremist militia and “patriot” groups has expanded dramatically since the election of President Obama, according to a report issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit organization that tracks “hate groups” and other, similar organizations. The number has expanded from 149 in 2008 to 512 in 2009—a 244 percent increase. “That is a lot of change in a short period of time,” says SPLC research director Heidi Beirich. The SPLC report says the number has “exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream.” While many of these groups do not espouse violence and are not considered a direct threat to government officials, government property, or citizens, some of them do advocate violent strikes against government organizations and/or “liberal” groups or individuals. The number dwindled during the eight years of the Bush presidency, the SPLC reports, but since the election of a black, Democratic president, along with a poorly performing economy and a female speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), as catalyzing factors, the number has increased, and continues to grow. “The country is becoming more diverse,” Beirich says. “Some people find it hard to handle.… These are extreme stressors for people.” Chip Berlet, an analyst for Political Research Associates, writes: “We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history. We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage.” The SPLC tracked 42 armed and potentially violent militias in 2008; that number has grown by over 300 percent, to 127, since then. The SPLC writes: “Patriot groups have been fueled by anger over the changing demographics of the country, the soaring public debt, the troubled economy, and an array of initiatives by President Obama and the Democrats that have been branded ‘socialist’ or even ‘fascist’ by his political opponents (see August 1, 2008 and After, October 10, 2008, October 27, 2008, January 2009, March 4-6, 2009, March 17, 2009, March 25, 2009, March 29, 2009, April 1-2, 2009, April 3-7, 2009, April 9-22, 2009, May 13, 2009, May 28, 2009, July 24, 2009, Late July, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 18, 2009, September 1, 2009, September 12, 2009, September 17, 2009, November 5, 2009, January 27, 2010, May 7, 2010, May 19, 2010, May 25, 2010, July 3-4, 2010, September 13, 2010, September 18, 2010, September 21, 2010, September 29, 2010, September 29, 2010, October 3, 2010, October 14, 2010, October 26, 2010, November 16, 2010, and April 27, 2011). Report editor Mark Potok says: “This extraordinary growth is a cause for grave concern. The people associated with the Patriot movement during its 1990s heyday produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead” (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Moreover, the report finds, the “patriot” movement has made common cause with the “tea party” political movement, and the two are becoming more and more entwined. The report finds, “The ‘tea parties’ and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories, and racism.” The “patriot” movement’s central ideas are being promoted by national figures, such as Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck and lawmakers such as House member Michele Bachmann (R-MN). The number of identified “racist hate groups” has not increased significantly from 2008 from 2009, the report finds, growing from 926 to 932. However, the growth rate would have been far higher if it were not for the collapse of the American National Socialist Workers Party, a key neo-Nazi network whose founder was arrested in October 2008 (see December 18, 2009). So-called “nativist extremist” groups, vigilante organizations that go beyond advocating strict immigration policy and actually confront or harass suspected immigrants, have also grown in number, from 173 in 2008 to 309 in 2009, a rise of nearly 80 percent. The SPLC reports: “These three strands of the radical right—the hate groups, the nativist extremist groups, and the Patriot organizations—are the most volatile elements on the American political landscape. Taken together, their numbers increased by more than 40 percent, rising from 1,248 groups in 2008 to 1,753 last year.” The report warns that the number and intensity of violence from these groups, and from “lone wolf” extremists perhaps triggered by these groups’ rhetoric and actions, is increasing. Since Obama took office in January 2009, six law enforcement officers have been murdered by right-wing extremists. There are large and increasing numbers of arrests of racist “skinheads” for plotting to assassinate Obama, and an increasing number of anti-government extremists have been arrested for fomenting bomb plots. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 3/2010; Southern Poverty Law Center, 3/2/2010; Detroit Free Press, 3/31/2010] A Detroit Free Press report will directly tie the Michigan Hutaree, a radical Christian group arrested for planning the murder of local police officers (see March 27-30, 2010), to the growing trend of militant activity documented in the SPLC report. Political science professor Michael Barkun, an expert on extremist religious groups, says of the Hutaree arrests: “I don’t think this is the last we’re going to see of these groups. The number of such groups has increased fairly dramatically in the last couple of years.” Beirich will note that the Hutaree were not isolated from other militias: “They were part of the broader militia movement,” she says. However, her conclusion is disputed by Michigan militia member Michael Lackomar. “They more closely fit the definition of a cult,” Lackomar will say. “They believe the world is about to end according to how it was written in the Bible, and their job is to stand up and clear the way for Jesus and fight alongside him against the forces of darkness.” While “[a] lot of people are upset at an ever-growing government that is overreaching,” Lackomar will say, most militias do not go to the Hutaree’s extremes. He will call the Hutaree’s plans to attack police officers “despicable.” [Detroit Free Press, 3/31/2010]

John Boehner. [Source: Slate]House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) makes what some believe to be an implicit threat towards Representative Steve Driehaus (D-OH). Boehner, discussing Driehaus’s vote for the health care reform package, says Driehaus will pay a heavy price for his vote. “Take Steve Driehaus, for example,” Boehner says. “He may be a dead man. He can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati. The Catholics will run him out of town.” After Boehner’s statement is publicized in the national media, Driehaus begins receiving death threats, and a right-wing Web site, The Whistleblower, publishes directions to his house urging readers to “protest” at his home. The headline of the article: “Tea Party Vows Revenge.” Driehaus’s press secretary Tim Mulvey releases a statement that reads in part, “This comes during the same one-week period that a right-wing special interest group published a photo of Rep. Driehaus and his children, the local Democratic Party headquarters in Cincinnati had a brick thrown through its front window, and Rep. Driehaus’s office received death threats.” Driehaus tells a reporter: “I’m very protective of my family, like most of us. There is no reason for my wife and kids to be brought into any of this. If people want to talk to me, if people want to approach me about an issue, I’m more than happy to talk about the issue, regardless of what side they’re on. But I do believe when you bring in a member’s family, that you’ve gone way too far.… Mr. Boehner made comments about me and my predicament when I go home which I felt were wildly out of bounds for his position and very irresponsible, quite frankly. He’s from next door [Boehner’s district adjoins Driehaus’s]. That’s not helpful. That’s irresponsible.” Shortly thereafter, Driehaus confronts Boehner on the floor of the House. “I didn’t think it was funny at all,” Driehaus will later recall. “I’ve got three little kids and a wife. I said to him: ‘John, this is bullsh_t, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.’” According to Driehaus, Boehner did not intend to urge anyone to commit violence against him or his family: “But it’s not about what he intended—it’s about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work.” Driehaus will recall that Boehner is “taken aback” when confronted on the floor, but never actually says he is sorry: “He said something along the lines of, ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’ But he didn’t apologize.” [National Review, 3/18/2010; Cincinnati Enquirer, 3/24/2010; Politico, 3/24/2010; Rolling Stone, 1/5/2011] Republican Party chairman Michael Steele says of Boehner’s comments: “The leader does not condone violence, and his remark was obviously not meant to be taken literally. He is urging Americans to take the anger they’re feeling and focus it on building a new majority that will listen to the people.” [Politico, 3/24/2010] Boehner says that when he called Driehaus a “dead man,” he was referring to Driehaus’s political career. [Talk Radio News Service, 3/25/2010]

A portion of Palin’s image, which puts gunsights on 20 Congressional districts, and names the Democrats who represent them. [Source: Sarah Palin / Huffington Post]Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), a Fox News contributor and generally accepted leader of the far-right Tea Party movement, posts an image on her Facebook page that depicts gunsights (crosshairs) on 20 Congressional districts and lists the Democrats who currently represent them. The image reads: “20 House Democrats from districts we [Republicans] carried in 2008 voted for the health care bill.… IT’S TIME WE TAKE A STAND. Let’s take back the 20 together!” The liberal Huffington Post calls Palin’s image and rhetoric “decidely militant.” Conservative commentator Elizabeth Hasselback calls the use of gunsight imagery “despicable,” saying: “I think the way some Republicans are handling this is nothing more than purely despicable. The names that are next to and being highlighted by those crosshairs—I think it’s an abuse of the Second Amendment. I also feel as though every single person on here is a mother, a father, a friend, a brother, a sister, and to take it to this level is—it’s disappointing to see this come from the party, and I would hope that leaders like Sarah Palin would end this.” The image lists the 20 Democrats by name (noting that three are not running for re-election, and marking their districts in red): Vic Snyder (D-AR, retiring) Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) Harry Mitchell (D-AZ) Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) John Salazar (D-CO) Betsy Markey (D-CO) Allen Boyd (D-FL) Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) Brad Ellsworth (D-IN, retiring) Baron Hill (D-IN) Earl Pomeroy (D-AL) Charlie Wilson (D-OH) John Boccieri (D-OH) Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) Christopher Carney (D-PA) John Spratt (D-SC) Bart Gordon (D-TN, retiring) Thomas Perriello (D-VA) Alan Mollohan (D-WV) Nick Rahall (D-WV) [Huffington Post, 3/24/2010; Huffington Post, 3/26/2010]After one of the listed Democrats, Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), is shot in the head by an apparent assassin in January 2011, Palin’s staff will remove the image from Palin’s Facebook page and issue the claim that the gunsights were actually intended to represent surveyor’s marks. However, Palin herself will call the gunsights “bullseyes” that “target[ed]” her opponents. After the November 2010 election, when all but two on the list have either retired or been defeated, Palin will post on Twitter: “Remember months ago ‘bullseye’ icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin’ incumbent seats? We won 18 out of 20 (90% success rate;T’aint bad).” Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler will write: “[I]t’s silly for her aides to claim she did not intend these to be gunsights. They can defend it, or apologize, but they shouldn’t pretend otherwise.” [Tammy Bruce, 1/8/2011; Washington Post, 1/11/2011]

Some of the armed militia members gathering in support of Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul. The two depicted are wearing pro-Paul stickers. [Source: Think Progress (.org)]US Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) is a featured speaker at an “open carry” rally held in Frankfort. “Open carry” advocates claim the right to openly carry firearms in public places. The rally includes groups like the Ohio Valley Freedom Fighters, an organization that has openly worked with and defended the Michigan-based Hutaree militia (see March 27-30, 2010). During his address to the rally, Paul calls the armed attendees, many of whom are wearing “I’m A Rand Fan” stickers, his “private security detail.” [Joe Sonka, 3/29/2010; Think Progress, 5/17/2010] (Note: progressive news Web site Think Progress misidentifies the militia organization at the Paul rally as the “Ohio Valley Freedom Fights.”) [Think Progress, 5/17/2010]

A Hutaree logo depicted on a shoulder patch. The initials CCR stand for ‘Colonial Christian Republic.’ [Source: BBC]Nine members of the “Hutaree,” a radical-right Christian militia organization, are charged with conspiring to kill police officers and wage war against the US. The FBI has arrested the nine members—eight men and one women—from locations throughout the Midwest, and are still searching for a tenth member, and charge them with “seditious conspiracy” and other crimes. The FBI alleges that the Hutaree members planned to kill a police officer in Michigan and then stage a second attack on the funeral, using landmines and roadside bombs or IEDs (improvised explosive devices). The arrests come after an 18-month investigation and a series of FBI raids on properties in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, after concluding that the group was planning a reconnaissance exercise. Attorney General Eric Holder says: “The indictment… outlines an insidious plan by anti-government extremists to murder a law enforcement officer in order to lure police from across the nation to the funeral where they would be attacked with explosive devices. Thankfully, this alleged plot has been thwarted and a severe blow has been dealt to a dangerous organisation that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States.” [CNN, 3/28/2010; Christian Science Monitor, 3/29/2010; BBC, 3/30/2010; Newsweek, 4/12/2010] The nine arrested are David Brian Stone of Clayton, Michigan, the leader of the group; David Brian Stone Jr. of Adrian, Michigan; Joshua Matthew Stone of Clayton; Tina Mae Stone of Clayton; Joshua John Clough of Blissfield, Michigan; Michael David Meeks of Manchester, Michigan; Kristopher T. Sickles of Sandusky, Ohio; Jacob J. Ward of Huron, Ohio; and Thomas W. Piatek of Hammond, Indiana. The FBI recovers 46 guns, two .50-caliber rifles, and 13,000 rounds of ammunition from Piatek’s home. All are denied bail in federal court. [Indiana Post-Tribune, 4/4/2010]FBI Alerted of 'Trouble' in 2009 - The indictment cites “a cooperating witness and an undercover FBI agent”; the Detroit News reports that one of the nine defendants, through her lawyer, says she believes a member of another militia group reported the Hutaree’s plans to the FBI. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/31/2010] It will later emerge that in 2009, residents of Adrian, Michigan, contacted the FBI over their concerns that Stone was planning something violent. Even local militia members were worried, and one militia member decided to infiltrate the group on behalf of the FBI. In the fall of 2009, the FBI learned that the Hutarees were building bombs, and the bureau sent its own undercover agent inside the group. The undercover agent actually offered to make the bombs; senior FBI agent Andrew Arena says that the benefit of that offer was in placing the FBI in charge of the explosives. “We were very fortunate to be able to insert an individual who was able to kind of take that role,” Arena says. “It certainly let me sleep a little better at night.” The agent went to meetings with surveillance devices to make audio recordings of the proceedings, and taped a February 2010 conversation in which Stone declared that he was sure local police “would fight right alongside some Chinese trooper. Heck, yeah. It’s all about power. It’s about the authority. They see us as the little people.” Stone and the other members of his group believe that the US government is planning on using foreign troops to impose martial law and tyranny on American citizens. During the same conversation, in which Stone read a speech he planned to give at an upcoming militia gathering in Kentucky, Stone said: “Now, we need to quit playing this game with these elitist terrorists and actually get serious, because this war will come whether we are ready or not. A war of this magnitude will not be easy. But like the rattlesnake on the Gadsden flag, we have rattled and warned the new world order (see September 11, 1990). Now it’s time to strike and take our nation back.” Arena says that while Stone has the constitutional right to say such things, “when you start taking action towards that government,” a citizen crosses the line into conspiracy to commit a crime. “In this case, we’re defining it as they started to plan how they were going to ignite the war.” When another Hutaree member asked for the help of a local militia headed by David Servino in building bombs and planning attacks, Servino says, “[w]e talked about it, and we decided as a group to go to the State Police Department—this local here—and talk to them, tell them what little information we had.” A day after Servino’s group informed the state police, the FBI began making its arrests. [National Public Radio, 4/12/2010]Extremist, Violent Ideology - A Hutaree Web site shows video footage of military-style training exercises and describes the members as “Christian warriors.” The site tells visitors that the Hutaree are preparing to defend themselves upon the arrival of the Antichrist, “for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive.… The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield if so God wills it.” The FBI describes the Hutaree as an “anti-government extremist organization” advocating violence against the police in its indictment of the members; the group perceives the police as an arm of the US government [CNN, 3/28/2010; Christian Science Monitor, 3/29/2010; BBC, 3/30/2010] , which it calls ZOG—the “Zionist Occupied Government.” There is some dispute in the media as to the origin of the name “Hutaree.” One source believes it may originate from the word “Hutriel,” which translates to “rod of God.” Hutriel is one of the seven angels of punishment and helps in the “punishment of the 10 nations,” according to tradition. [Basil and Spice (.com), 4/6/2010] They label the police “the Brotherhood.” According to the Michigan Hutaree theology, which they call “the doctrine of the Hutaree,” former NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana is the Antichrist. The Hutaree’s exalted commander is called a “radok”; deputies and lieutenants are known as “boromanders” and “zulifs.” [Newsweek, 4/12/2010] Stone’s ex-fiancee, Andrea March, recalls Stone as a “Ron Paul fanatic,” referring to Ron Paul (R-TX) the libertarian House member whom many see as an ideological “father” of many “tea party” organizations. Appearing on Fox News, March tells an interviewer that Stone is a fanatical Paul supporter who feared that President Obama intended to take away his guns. “When Obama took the presidency is when he lost it because he was a Ron Paul fanatic,” she says. Asked what Paul has to do with Stone’s thinking and actions, she replies: “To tell you the truth I don’t know. I never really understood why Ron Paul was so much different, but [Stone] thought he could get away with anything and he wanted more freedoms than what he had and he was trying to do it through the violence.… [H]e clearly believed in guns and having them and he didn’t think. He didn’t want to have a driver’s license, he didn’t want to fill out any census papers. He wanted to own guns unregistered.” [Crooks and Liars, 3/30/2010]Leader, Group Well Known for Violent Expressions - The group leader, Stone, is called “Captain Hutaree” by his colleagues, or, cryptically, “RD.” The indictment names Stone as the “principal leader” of the organization. According to media reports, Stone has a strong affinity for the most violent of the far-right fringes of the American militia movement. His first wife, Donna Stone, tells reporters she left him because he “got carried away.” Federal authorities say that he researched how to build IEDs and roadside bombs on the Internet, and emailed diagrams of the devices to someone he believed could actually build such devices. And one neighbor, Phyllis Bruger, says she and others learned not to “mess with” Stone and his group. They liked to conduct “military exercises” and shoot guns, usually wearing camouflage outfits. “Everybody knew they were militia,” she says. Donna Stone tells reporters: “It started out as a Christian thing. You go to church. You pray. You take care of your family. I think David started to take it a little too far. He dragged a lot of people with him. When he got carried away, when he went from handguns to big guns, I was done.” Her son, Joshua Stone, who was adopted by David Stone, was arrested with David Stone after helping him gather materials necessary for making the bombs. Donna Stone adds: “He dragged a lot of innocent people down with him. It started to get worse when they were talking about the world’s gonna end in the Bible.” The indictment says, “Stone taught other Hutaree members how to make and use explosive devices intending or knowing that the information would be used to further a crime of violence.” Too Far for Other Militia Groups - Other militia organizations in Michigan kept their distance from the local Hutaree, says Jim Gulliksen of the Lenawee Volunteer Michigan Militia (the same group that Servino founded and that informed police of the Hutaree plot). “I’ve met him,” Gulliksen says. “He’s an opinionated man who likes to share those opinions. The Hutaree is a nationwide group, but I have met a couple of the members here, and I can say they all belong to one specific church. Our concern is the protection of our nation. Religion appears to be a big part of what they are doing.” Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center says the SPLC is aware of two Hutaree chapters, one in Utah and Stone’s chapter in Michigan. She notes Hutaree has more than 350 friends on its MySpace page, dozens of whom are members of other militias, and says that Stone was planning to attend a summit in Kentucky with other militias next month. “Hutaree is not an isolated crew,” she notes. Beinrich says that Stone and his colleagues see “the end of times” occurring today: “They have extreme antigovernment beliefs. They have rage and hatred for the federal government. They fear being put in FEMA concentration camps. They’re really paramilitary organizations.” [Christian Science Monitor, 3/29/2010] William Flatt, a founder of the Indiana Militia, is also aware of Stone and the Hutaree. He is not surprised at the arrests. “We had a strong suspicion that groups like this would be getting some rather substantial bad press fairly quickly,” Flatt tells a reporter. Flatt says that unlike the Hutaree, his and most militia groups support and defend the US Constitution. “The whole militia movement is supposed to be a goal-line defense against tyranny,” Flatt says. “If all else fails, the people still have the means to shoehorn [the government] back into the constitutional mold.” The Michigan Hutaree’s plans to kill police officers, Flatt says, is abhorrent to his group, and he warns that it is a mistake to lump all American militias in with extremist, violent groups such as Stone’s. Flatt disliked Stone’s views, which he says focus on his interpretation of Christianity and also express bigotry against others. However, he is skeptical of the charges against some of Stone’s followers. “The charges they’re putting out there, it only ends one way,” he says. “You might as well put yourself in the Alamo; nobody wants to do that.” [Indiana Post-Tribune, 4/4/2010] Arena says that while Stone’s group might have considered itself a part of a larger, sympathetic coterie of like-minded organizations, it was mistaken. “These guys may have felt in their mind that they were a part of this brotherhood,” he says. “The reality is I don’t think they’ve got a whole lot of support.” [Associated Press, 4/2/2010]Lawyer Insists No Crime Committed - Stone’s lawyer, William Swor, says there is no evidence the group ever took steps to implement any of the alleged plots. Instead, he says, the group is being persecuted over the exercise of constitutionally protected speech. “This is still America and people can say whatever they want,” he says. [Newsweek, 4/12/2010]

Christian Science Monitor reporter Mark Guarino delves into some of the reasons why Michigan has such a high concentration of militia, anti-government, and other extremist groups within its borders. The analysis comes in the aftermath of the arrest of nine members of the Hutaree, a violent Christian group whom the FBI says were planning on murdering one or more police officers (see March 27-30, 2010). Michigan has 47 known militia or “patriot” groups, second in the nation behind Texas (which contains 57 such groups). These numbers come from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit civil rights organization that tracks hate group activity. The SPLC says dozens of new militia and “patriot” groups have begun since the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president; between 2008 and 2009, the SPLC says, the number of groups throughout the country has grown from 149 to 512 (see March 2, 2010). The Michigan branch of the Hutaree is one of the most violent and far-right of these groups, the SPLC says, but Michigan and the entire Upper Midwest has become a hotbed of “patriot” activity. Chip Berlet, an analyst for Political Research Associates, says: “There are a number of regional factors that, over time and at various moments, helped the militia movement take hold in different parts of the country. It certainly has emerged strongly in the upper Midwest.” Indiana has 21 such groups, Wisconsin and Ohio 13 each, and Illnois 10, according to SPLC figures. Michigan has a long history of such activity, according to SPLC official Heidi Beirich. Many of Michigan’s most prominent militia groups, including the Michigan Militia, came into being during the term in office of the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. The Michigan Militia gained notoriety when the media found ties between it and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994, January 1995, 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995, and April 21, 1995). Militia activity in Michigan dwindled during the Bush presidency, but with Obama as president, has risen sharply. The Hutaree members were able to attract some members of less openly violent groups such as the Michigan Militia, though spokesmen for that group say that their organization rejects the Christian survivalist doctrine of the Hutaree. Beirich says, “The roots of militia activity are there [in Michigan], so if you want to organize something you know who to call.” Experts say a combination of factors contribute to the rise in militias: a troubled economy, changing roles within the traditional family structure, and shifts in the racial makeup of the country’s population. Berlet notes that shared anxiety among lower-to-middle-class people is often a catalyst for generating conspiracy theories, which have the potency to provoke people to take up arms and commit violence. “The candidacy of Obama—when it looked to become serious—prompted a lot of anxiety, and the anxiety continued to rise up to the inauguration,” says Berlet. “This is really getting out of hand,” Berlet says. “It’s a serious problem when people decide the solution to political problems lies in arming themselves and going underground.” He concludes: “While you can look at the Republicans and right wing and say, ‘You let things go too far,’ the Democrats use very demonizing language and aren’t interested in a policy debate, either. They’ve been interested in bashing the Republicans and right wing as crazy and ignorant. So it’s a mess.” [Christian Science Monitor, 3/30/2010] Former federal prosecutor Aitan Goelman, who helped convict McVeigh of the Oklahoma City bombing, suggests that the true danger of groups like the Hutaree and other militias is not from the groups themselves, but from the risk of these groups’ inflammatory declarations and actions sparking violence from so-called “lone wolves,” who like McVeigh are not necessarily active members of any such groups, but whose actions go farther than most groups ever intend. Goelman notes that in 1995, a Democrat was president, just as today; Clinton pushed through a controversial federal assault weapons ban (see September 13, 1994) and Obama has successfully implemented an equally controversial health care reform package; and, both then and now, extremists on the right are warning of an impending government takeover. “On the edges” of political discourse today, Goelman says, “you have rhetoric that carries over to extreme factions.” He continues, “Anytime you have group-think and this churning of ridiculous ideas back and forth, eventually you’ll get someone like McVeigh who’s going to say, ‘I’m going to take the mantle of leadership and fire the shot heard around the world and start the second American revolution.’” McVeigh considered the Michigan Militia “too moderate” and himself as a “man of action” who wanted to go farther than these groups. “I think [his associations with militias] put a battery in the pack,” Goelman says. “Some of this is fantasy. I think the idea that it is kind of fun to talk about a UN tank on your front lawn and the New World Order (see September 11, 1990)… but when someone blows up a building and kills 19 kids in a day-care center, it’s not so glamorous anymore,” he says, referring to the Oklahoma City incident. “The reality of murdering innocent people ends up far less glorious than striking the blow.” [Christian Science Monitor, 3/31/2010]

The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) sends what the Anti-Defamation League calls “a virulently anti-Semitic DVD” to Jewish organizations and individuals around the nation, in what apparently is an escalation of its recent spate of attacks on Jews (see April 2009). The DVD also attacks President Obama, calling him the “anti-Christ,” and includes vehemently anti-gay and anti-Catholic rhetoric. [Anti-Defamation League, 2012]

Montana Freemen leader Daniel Petersen (see 1983-1995), convicted of multiple counts of bank fraud involving false liens and bogus checks (see March 16, 1999), is sentenced to over seven additional years in prison for filing false liens from his Minnesota jail cell. Petersen is sentenced under a 2008 law making it a felony to retaliate against any government officer by filing false liens; his is the first time the law has actually been used. Minnesota US Attorney B. Todd Jones says in a statement: “Over the years, Petersen and his accomplices have repeatedly broken the law in an effort to enrich themselves. Those who have tried to stop them, including members of law enforcement and the judiciary, have been singled out for retaliation.… This prosecution, hopefully, will impress on Petersen and others that, regardless of their beliefs, they will be prosecuted if they break the law, and their attempts at retaliation or intimidation will not succeed.” Petersen filed false liens against three judges, including District Judge John C. Coughenour, who presided over his trial, and two Texas federal judges. He invented a company he claimed held assets, including a $100 trillion default judgment against the United States, and sold “shares” in the company to fellow inmates and others. The shares were supposedly backed by “redemption certificates” Petersen said could be redeemed as soon as he collected on the judgment he said was owed to him by the government. Peterson concocted the scheme after former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declined to respond to his demand for $100 trillion, plus $1 billion per day in interest, for unlawfully confining him. Peterson also filed liens against real property owned by the three judges, offered bounties for the arrest of the judges, and offered rewards to anyone who brought the three to Minnesota to answer his liens. Prosecutors said Petersen ignored repeated warnings while in custody that his actions were unlawful. [Billings Gazette, 4/8/2010]

The documentary uses an actor and computer effects to simulate McVeigh’s actions during the interviews, which were recorded on audio tape, and of his carrying out the bombing. [Source: MSNBC]MSNBC airs a documentary about convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997), who before his execution (see 7:14 a.m. June 11, 2001) confessed to bombing the Murrah Federal Building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) to Buffalo News reporters Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck. Michel and Herbeck went on to write a 2001 biography of McVeigh, American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing, based on their interviews with McVeigh. The MSNBC documentary, The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist, features excerpts drawn from the 45 hours of audio recordings made by Michel. The documentary will be broadcast on April 19, the 15th anniversary of the bombing, and features film of the bombing and its aftermath; computer-generated recreations to augment the actual audio recordings (with an actor playing McVeigh); and interviews with survivors of the bombing and family members of the slain. McVeigh told of his childhood in upstate New York (see 1987-1988), his experiences in the 1991 Gulf War (see January - March 1991 and After), his relationship with convicted co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, December 23, 1997, and June 4, 1998), and of the meticulous planning and execution of the bombing. [MSNBC, 4/15/1995; MSNBC, 4/15/1995] One of the few moments when McVeigh’s voice became animated was when he described the moments before the bomb went off, saying, “I lit the two-minute fuse at the stoplight, and I swear to God that was the longest stoplight I’ve ever sat at in my life.” [New York Times, 4/18/1995] The documentary is narrated by MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow. Herbeck says he understands that the documentary will evoke strong feelings. “Some people will say they don’t want to hear anything about Timothy McVeigh and we respect their feelings on that,” he says. “But others are interested in hearing what made a terrorist tick.” Michel says, “[It’s an] oral blueprint of what turned one young man into one of the worst mass-murderers and terrorists in American history.” Herbeck says their book drew similar mixed reactions: “A few of the victims were outraged by our book, and they went public with their feelings. They felt it was wrong to tell the story of a terrorist.” Maddow says she is not worried that the documentary will somehow glamorize McVeigh or make him into a martyr figure: “McVeigh is profoundly unsympathetic—even repugnant—on his own terms, you don’t need to work to make him seem that way. There’s a huge distance between the hero he is in his own mind, and how basely unheroic he seems to anyone hearing the tapes now. I personally am not a supporter of the death penalty… but hearing him talk, it’s hard not to wish him gone.” In the documentary, Jannie Coverdale, who lost her two young grandchildren in the blast, says: “I was glad when he died. I will never forgive Timothy McVeigh.” Oklahoma City Police Department official Jennifer Rodgers, one of the first responders to the bombing (see 9:02 a.m. - 10:35 a.m. April 19, 1995), says her feelings are “still raw.… It just doesn’t seem like it was really that long ago.” Maddow says the story is important even 15 years later: “The Murrah Building bombing is the worst incident of domestic terrorism we’ve ever experienced as a nation. We owe pure remembrance of the date, and commemoration of the lives lost and changed. I think it’s also an appropriate occasion to talk about the threat of domestic terrorism. How strong is the threat now, 15 years after McVeigh? Are we heeding warning signs that may be out there now?” Former President Clinton, who oversaw the federal efforts to respond to the bombing, has recently warned that ugly and frightening parallels exist between the current political tensions and the anti-government rage that preceded McVeigh’s attack, saying: “We can disagree with them [elected officials], we can harshly criticize them. But when we turn them into an object of demonization, we increase the number of threats.” Michel says: “There’s no question that the militia movement is on the rise again. Some of the same factors that caused McVeigh to believe he had become disenfranchised from mainstream society are again in the mix: growing government regulations, lack of employment. Those are things McVeigh would cite if he were alive.” [MSNBC, 4/15/1995; MSNBC, 4/15/1995] In the documentary, Maddow says of the date of the airing: “On this date, which holds great meaning for the anti-government movement, the McVeigh tapes are a can’t-turn-away, riveting reminder.” Washington Post reviewer Hank Steuver calls the documentary “chilling” and McVeigh’s demeanor “arrogan[t]” and unrepentant. “Maddow and company wisely decline to draw too straight a line from 1995 to 2010, but, as she indicates, it might be helpful in crazy times to study this sort of crazy head-on,” he writes. “Watching this, it’s easy to feel like that fuse is still lit.” [Washington Post, 4/18/2010] New York Times reviewer Alessandra Stanley says the use of an actor and computer effects “blunts its impact by relying on stagy computer graphics.… Scenes of this domestic terrorist in shackles during a prison interview or lighting a fuse inside a rented Ryder truck look neither real nor completely fake, but certainly cheesy: a violent video game with McVeigh as a methodical, murderous avatar.” [New York Times, 4/18/1995] The documentary is later made available on YouTube. [911Blogger (.com), 4/20/2010]

This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is co-sponsored by the far-right, openly racist John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011). CPAC spokesman Ian Walters says this is the first time the JBS has sponsored the conference. In the 1960s, influential conservative pundit William F. Buckley denounced the society and its founder Robert Welch as “idiotic” and “paranoid.” Buckley’s condemnation effectively exiled the group from mainstream conservatism for half a century. Welch had accused then-President Dwight Eisenhower of being a “conscious, dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy” and said the government was “under operational control of the Communist Party.” Buckley argued that such paranoid rantings had no place in the conservative movement or the Republican Party. Lisa Depasquale, CPAC’s director for the American Conservative Union, which runs the conference, explains why the JBS is now a sponsor, saying: “They’re a conservative organization. Beyond that I have no comment.” [ABC News, 4/19/2010]

Depiction of an Oath Keeper shoulder patch. [Source: Oath Keepers]Darren Huff, a former US Navy officer from Georgia who belongs to a far-right militia group called the “Oath Keepers” (see March 9, 2009 and March 2010), drives to Madisonville, Tennessee, as part of a group of militia members with the intention of “tak[ing] over” the Madisonville courthouse and freeing Walter Fitzpatrick, who was jailed when he tried to enforce a “citizen’s arrest” on a judicial official for failing to convene an investigation into President Obama’s citizenship (see April 1-5, 2010). The Oath Keepers are a group of former military and law enforcement officials who often advise current military and law enforcement personnel not to obey orders from higher authorities on the grounds that those orders do not satisfy constitutional mandates. Huff drives to Tennessee with a Colt .45 and an AK-47, but is intercepted by state troopers acting on an alert from the FBI. The troopers tell reporters that Huff acknowledges being armed, and states his intention to go to the Madisonville courthouse, take over the facility, and arrest county officials, whom he calls “domestic enemies of the United States engaged in treason,” and turn them over to the state police. According to a witness interviewed by the FBI, Huff is only one member of “eight or nine militia groups” whose intent is to go to Madisonville to “take over the city.” The witness, a bank manager, says Huff told him he’d see Huff’s actions on the news. Madisonville law enforcement officials report witnessing numerous individuals carrying both openly displayed and concealed firearms in the area around the courthouse. The troopers permit Huff to proceed to the courthouse, though Huff attempts no arrests and no violence ensues. The next day, Huff tells a radio audience that his encounter with the troopers was “not entirely confrontational.… We were kind of a little bit more on a friendly level, even some Christian conversation came in, which I was glad for.” He tells his listeners that he showed great restraint by not performing a citizen’s arrest on the troopers, and adds that because the first attempt to free Fitzpatrick was unsuccessful, he and other militia members intend to mount a second “rescue effort” within one to two weeks. Instead, Huff is arrested by the FBI, who listened to the broadcast and determined that he has the means and the intent to cause violence. Carl Swensson, who like Fitzpatrick is a member of the right-wing, anti-government group “American Grand Jury” (AGJ), recounts the entire series of incidents on his Web site, and demands others get involved “to help the citizen’s [sic] of the United States regain our Constitutional Republic by peaceful means.” [WBIR-TV, 5/4/2010; TPM Muckraker, 5/6/2010; Crooks and Liars, 5/6/2010]

Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck tells his viewers that in order to stop Democratic leaders from imposing a communist regime on America, they are going to have to “shoot them in the head.” He specifically cites Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as one of those leaders. He says that while Democratic leaders such as Pelosi and President Obama are not themselves communists, they use “avowed communists” such as former union leader Andy Stern to force America towards a communist system. “These people are politicians and they knew—they’re progressive politicians,” Beck says. “They’re not—they’re not total government. They’re not communists. They do not want to be communists. They don’t. But they would like it here. And they would like all the control they have, so dollars—so money could go into their—money could go in their pockets. That’s right.… So, this is what you have to understand. These people saw these people as fuel. If we can just unite, then it becomes a united front. This is your strong arm. This will do all the bad things for you. Okay?” He says that the Democratic Party is infested with “communist revolutionaries” who are driving the party, and thereby the nation, towards a Stalinist state. “The radicals have infected the party. They have been brought in by politicians who don’t really care about anything. They just want to win. They’ve been tolerating the revolutionaries—the Democrats have.” Beck says that “tea partiers” and other right-wing elements must oppose the “radicals” in the Democratic Party at all costs. He says: “Tea parties believe in small government. We believe in returning to the principles of our Founding Fathers. We respect them. We revere them. Shoot me in the head before I stop talking about the founders. Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government. I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don’t. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep’s clothing—change the pose. You will get the ends. You’ve been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You’re going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you. They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them—they’re revolutionaries. Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.… They want to overthrow our entire system of government, and their words say it. Why won’t you believe it?… The revolution of 1776 was a picnic compared to what the revolutionaries of today would like to do. It’s not a lot of fun. Usually, millions of people die.” [Fox News, 6/10/2010; Raw Story, 1/20/2011] Months later, Beck will claim that he was actually warning Democratic leaders about the prospects of being shot by “radical leftists” (see January 21, 2011).

Since winning the Nevada Republican nomination for Senate against incumbent Harry Reid (D-NV), far-right conservative candidate Sharron Angle has refused to comment on recent reports that she said she hoped someone would “take him out” (meaning Reid), and advocated launching an armed insurrection to overthrow Congress using “Second Amendment remedies” (see January 2010). Today, Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein posts an audio clip of an interview Angle gave radio host Bill Manders during the primary campaign which reiterated her recomendation of “Second Amendment remedies” to be used not only against Congress, but against Reid in particular. The undated audio clip has Angle saying: “I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry. This not for someone who’s in the military. This not for law enforcement. This is for us. And in fact when you read that Constitution and the founding fathers, they intended this to stop tyranny. This is for us when our government becomes tyrannical.… Well it’s to defend ourselves. And you know, I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.” Angle also hinted that she may be carrying a concealed weapon—a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 29—during the interview. Manders said, “Whoa, you’re not carrying that today, are you, in here?” Angle replied: “Well, you know, as part of your test, they always say, ‘Don’t ever tell anybody if you’re carrying because the bad guys don’t need to know if you’re carrying.’ That’s what makes that [sic] concealed carries effective.” [Huffington Post, 6/16/2010]

Richard Poplawski, the white supremacist who killed three police officers in a 2009 shooting spree (see April 4, 2009), has his trial date extended for the last time. His trial is now set for April 2011. “There will be no further continuances of this matter for any reason,” says Judge Jeffrey A. Manning. Poplawski’s lawyer, Lisa Middleman, says she needs further time to prepare her case because her client faces the death penalty, and a specialist is preparing Poplawski’s defense. Poplawski has asked Manning to remove another court-appointed attorney, Richard Narvin, from his defense team, saying “things have broken down” between Narvin and himself. Though Manning has refused the request, Narvin has also asked to withdraw. Prosecutor Mark Tranquilli says Narvin’s request may lead to more delays. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 6/29/2010] Manning had scheduled the trial for October 12, 2010, over objections from Middleman, who said in April 2010 that six months was not enough time to prepare her client’s defense. “Anybody who can’t prepare this case in six months shouldn’t have a law degree,” Manning retorted. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 4/7/2010; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 6/29/2010]

Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, running as a Republican against Democrat Harry Reid, retracts her statement that Reid should be “take[n] out” by “Second Amendment remedies”—i.e. through the use of firearms. Angle made the statement in January as part of a larger statement in favor of conservatives mounting an armed insurrection against Congress (see January 2010). After Angle won the June 8 primary, reporters began writing about her earlier statements. She now says her words about “tak[ing] out” Reid were “a little strong,” and says she no longer uses that phrase (see June 16, 2010). However, she refuses to apologize for her words. “I meant take him out of office, and taking him out of office is a little different,” Angle says. “I changed my rhetoric.” Angle routinely speaks with conservative radio hosts, but almost never with actual members of the press. In withdrawing her January statement, she gives a rare interview to Nevada’s KVBC. In the interview, she declares her intention as a senator to dismantle Social Security, repeal abortion in nearly all instances (including rape and incest), and claims that the Constitution has no provision for the separation of church and state (see September 17, 2010). Reid’s campaign has stated that Angle believes such church-state separation is unconstitutional, leading Angle spokesman Jerry Stacy to accuse Reid of finding “ways to twist a larger historical statement Angle was making about the origins of separation of church and state.” Stacy explains that Reid is “terrified of having a real discussion about jobs and the economy.” Reid campaign spokesman Jon Summers says Reid stands by his campaign’s position, and adds that he believes Angle meant exactly what she said when she recommended that Reid be “take[n] out” by force. “It wasn’t a gaffe, it is a philosophy,” he says. “She has repeated that language many times.” [Las Vegas Sun, 6/8/2010; Associated Press, 6/30/2010]

A sign outside Terry Jones’s Florida church. [Source: Gainesville Sun]Pastor Terry Jones of a small Gainesville, Florida, church called the Dove World Outreach Center sends a barrage of posts on Twitter, called “tweets,” that call Islam a “fascist” religion and lambast President Obama’s support for a new Kenyan constitution that could permit abortion and codify Islamic law. His final one reads, “9/11/2010 Int Burn a Koran Day.” [Washington Post, 9/10/2010] In the hours that follow, Jones begins a Facebook campaign he calls “International Burn a Koran Day.” Jones says that on September 11, 2010, he and his congregation intend to burn “a few hundred Korans” in a massive bonfire on his church’s grounds, and he expects a crowd of “several hundred” to join him. He also says that others will undoubtedly join him by burning Korans on their own. Jones says that he intends to burn the Korans because Islam is an “evil” religion and a sponsor of worldwide terrorism, and it is time for Christians to “stand up” to Muslims. He says Islam promotes violence and that Muslims want to impose Shari’a law in the United States. He has acknowledged that he and his wife Sylvia learned what they know of Islam by watching YouTube videos, and has admitted never actually meeting a Muslim. He has said publicly that other religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, are all “of the devil.” He says he has refused to take part in any interfaith discussions, explaining: “Because I’m not interested in interfaith discussions. That’s part of our problem.” [ABC News, 9/7/2010; Gainesville Sun, 9/11/2010; Daily Mail, 4/2/2011] He claims to have over 700 “friends” on Facebook by July 23, only two days after the “tweet” barrage, though most of the comments on the page are quite negative. [Washington Post, 9/10/2010; The Age, 9/12/2010] The Dove Center is a nondenominational church that practices charismatic, evangelical Christianity, and supplies free food and clothing to indigent citizens through its Lisa Jones House, an organization named after Jones’s first wife, who died in 1999. [Gainesville Sun, 7/8/2009] Within days of the Facebook campaign launch, EuroIslam (.info), a Web site that collects news and analysis headed by a Harvard professor of divinity, picks up the Dove World mission statement—“To bring to awareness to the dangers of Islam and that the Koran is leading people to hell”—and posts it on its “Islamaphobia Observatory” section. Jones begins posting videos on YouTube promoting his intentions to burn Korans. By July 21, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for Koran education sessions to refute the burnings. Jones soon appears on CNN, and on July 30, is asked by the National Association of Evangelicals to call off the planned Koran-burning. In August, a Sunni scholars’ center at al-Azhar University in Cairo issues a statement condemning the plan to burn Korans and warning that doing so could have “dangerous consequences.” By early September, protesters in Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are taking to the streets in opposition to Jones. [Washington Post, 9/10/2010]History of Controversy in Germany and Florida - Jones calls himself a doctor and claims he was awarded an honorary doctorate of theology degree from the unaccredited California Graduate School of Theology in Rosemead in 1983, but the university has never confirmed this, and later says the degree it awarded to Jones is strictly honorary. Jones, a native of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and a high-school classmate of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, is a former hotel manager and Christian missionary. He and his wife Sylvia were asked to leave Germany in 2008, where he and Lisa Jones had established a small church in Cologne, the Christliche Gemeinde Koln. One of his three children accused them of “financial and labor abuses,” and told authorities that “the workforce was comprised of the Jones’s disciples, who work for no wages and live cost-free in tatty properties owned by the couple.” People who listened to some of Jones’s sermons in the Cologne church later recall them as “hate-filled.” Jones became involved in the Dove Center in 2003, when it was led by Dennis Watson, and for five years shuttled between the US and Germany to work at both sites. In 2008, after being forced to leave Germany, he took over the leadership of the Dove Center fulltime. When Jones took over the leadership, the church had about 100 members; that number has dwindled to between 30 and 50 now. A former employee expelled from the Dove Center later tells reporters that punishments for disobedience in the church include carrying a life-size wooden cross, writing out all of Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, or cleaning the barnacles off Jones’s boat in Tampa. Jones’s daughter Emma, a child from his first marriage, still lives in Germany and has no contact with her father, but reportedly contacts him and asks him not to carry out his threats to burn Korans. She told a German reporter that her father’s church was little more than “a cult.” Andrew Schafer, a Protestant Church official responsible for monitoring sects in the region where Cologne is located, will say that Jones has a “delusional personality.” [Der Spiegel, 9/8/2010; Gainesville Sun, 9/11/2010; Daily Mail, 4/2/2011]For-Profit Activities - Jones also runs an antique and used furniture store, TS and Company, on the grounds of the church; the company had its tax-exempt status revoked in 2009 when Alachua County tax officials determined that it was a for-profit organization masquerading as a non-profit religious entity; his bank will soon demand he repay the church’s $140,000 mortgage. Former members who were brought to the United States on religious visas have said they were made to work as many as 12 hours a day packing furniture (religious visas do not allow work at for-profit companies). He also runs the “Dove World Academy,” a six-month-long boot camp-esque regiment of discipline and working without pay. Those who are enrolled are not allowed contact with family members for six months and are required to wear khaki uniforms and address church leaders as sir or ma’am. The tuition costs $500. [ABC News, 9/7/2010; Gainesville Sun, 9/11/2010; Daily Mail, 4/2/2011]'Islam Is the Devil - Jones is the author of a book, Islam is the Devil, a phrase often used on church property. In August 2009, two children who are members of the church were sent home from school after coming to class wearing T-shirts reading “Islam is the Devil.” Jones is often seen on the 20-acre church compound with a pistol strapped to his hip. Of the phrase, Jones says: “It’s an act of saying there is only one way, and that is actually what Christianity is about. It is about pointing the people in the right direction, and that right direction is Jesus and only Jesus. We feel the sign is an act of giving the people a chance.… I think every pastor, every Christian pastor in this city, must be in agreement with the message. They might find the message a little bit too direct, but they must be in agreement with the message because the only way is the Bible and Jesus.” The sign is regularly vandalized, Jones says, and is repaired and replaced when it is damaged. Neighbor Aubrey Davies tells a reporter: “When we originally saw it, we were initially very offended.… We’re sad it is up. It is such a divisive message when it could be used to put out a statement of unity.” Saeed Khan, a University of Florida professor and a practicing Muslim, says it is important not to overreact to the sign. “There are a couple of things on this that come to mind, and first there is freedom of speech,” he says. “People are free to say, but then society has to think about it. When it becomes inflamed, the reaction on both sides can be detrimental to the people that live there. You have to make some kind of balance.” Jones says future signs may express his opposition to same-sex marriage or abortion. [Gainesville Sun, 7/8/2009; ABC News, 9/7/2010; Gainesville Sun, 9/11/2010; Daily Mail, 4/2/2011]'The Braveheart Show' - Jones spends much of his time in his office, which is adorned with a poster from the movie Braveheart and a photograph of former US President George W. Bush. He has launched a series of YouTube videos he calls the “Braveheart Show,” which feature anti-Islamic diatribes. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/7/2010; ABC News, 9/7/2010]False Rumor of Child Porn Conviction - Rumors circulating on the Internet and repeated by some media outlets that Jones was convicted on child pornography charges have proven to be false. [ABC News, 9/7/2010]

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